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Manuel Castells is one of the most widely recognised contributors to contemporary debates about globalisation. Indeed his three volume trilogy The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture published from 1996 to 2000 was amongst the earliest, full-scale theories of globalisation. Castells transformed globalisation from a fashionable academic concept into a a whole new phase of human history. More recent contributors such as Hardt and Negri, Held, Bauman and Giddens have arguably been writing within Castells’ legacy. Few since however, have been able to match the boldness of Castells venture which some are already characterising as a work in the tradition of previous grand works of sociology such as Karl Marx and Max Weber. Of course, it is too early to place Castells alongside Marx and Weber but the central thesis of his trilogy is certainly all-encompassing. It is nothing less than the claim that new information technologies have not only transformed the technology of communication, they have not merely had a globalising impact but have brought about a new age, within which these technologies are the organising logic and principles. Very little of human life escapes this new age for Castells, from state structures and national sovereignty to the everyday individual reckoning with our own identity.

In the first volume of his trilogy, The Network Society, Castells explains how the new age can be characterised as an age of informationalism. The world has shifted from industrialism to post-industrialism to informationalism (Castells, 1996). In other words the determining technology of our age is not mechanical but informational. This has brought about a whole new way in which economic activity and production is conducted, through networking. This takes place within companies, between companies and between regions. Networking is the new means for ensuring productivity, as opposed to old-fashioned heirarchical managerial strcutures which relied on the controllable logic of mechanical operations. Rather networking is informational and its technological medium is the internet. The networking society has important consequences not only for economic progress but for human relationships and the future of the nation-stae. In economic terms it means that progress is tied inextricably to information technology. If technology is responsible for transferring labor and matter into consumable goods and the production of consumable goods determines economic progress then such progress is determined by information technology, and particular the manipulation of the internet. Furthermore, if human culture is significantly determined by the forms of economic activity that permeate it then the rise of the new information technologies is bound to have a rapid and dramatic impact on everyday human relationships. Perhaps the most significant of these is the impact on our conception of time. The world has become a much smaller place with the onset of information technology as we can interact and respond to each other in real time – about matters of great significance.

This theme is further developed in the second volume of the trilogy The Power of Identity. Here, Castells explains how the new social movements are posing a formidable challenge to the old nation-state system (Castells, 1998). These new social movements are the product of the new global economic order – because this is new order is ruthless, perhaps more ruthless and brutal than previous economic orders. Whole communities and forms of life can simply by cut out or switched of. Individuals are likely to feel that their traditional roots have no value and at the same time there is very little security provided by this new order. In the End of Millenium, the third volume of his trilogy, Castells paints a gloomy picture of the trends that have been set in place by globalisation (Castells, 2000). On the one hand many will feel increasingly lost in the information age – further removed from the forces that are shaping their lives. On the other hand many of those that embrace the new world order will do so at the expense of the moral grounding that upheld previous social orders.

Castells’ trilogy has been both widely discussed and heavily criticised. Much of this criticism has been concerned with the presentation of his ideas, that Castells covers too much ground and is uneccessarily verbose. There are more serious criticisms that can be made however. These criticisms are perhaps best highlighted by contrasting Castells’ work with other theorists of globalisation. Saskia Sassen provides one such contrast. For Sassen departs significantly in her account of globalisation from Castells’ economic and technological determinism. Whereas Castells argues that the new world order is fundamentally a new economic order and that this new economic order is founded on progress in information technology, Sassen argues that there are two main trends that have driven globalisation (Sassen, 1996). According to Sassen these two main trends are both economic and political. And it is the development of political globalisation that tells most significantly against Castells’ thesis. New forms of transnational political association such as the European Union are acquiring a significant measure of political authority over process of global economic and social activities. They must therefore be understood as part of the driving force of globalisation. But political globalisation does not simply entail the transfer of power from national to international institutions. It also includes new human rights regimes. These rights have been centred around the protection, or at least the recognition, of peoples from the abuse of state power by international. Whilst human rights protection is patchy and far from universal it is one aspect of a way of avoiding the pessimistic conclusions made by Castells. Perhaps, even, a new form of global citizenship is possible through both global political institutions and the remaining and still vital democratic institutions of nation-states, which are far from disappearing as one might believe after reading Castells.

But how will this be possible if, as Robertson explains, there is no prospect of any kind of unified global culture that could underpinn it. Well, perhaps it is if we follow Robertson’s definition of globalisation as opposed to Castells. According to Robertson globalisation ‘refers both to the compression of the world and the intensification of consciousness of the global whole’. (Robertson, 1992: 8) In contrast to Castells then, who argues that in a globalised world individuals are likely to feel increasingly lost, disconnected from the forces that are shaping their lives, Robertson’s globalisation leads to an increasing interconnectedness between people. This interconnectedness is obviously enabled to a significant degree by the internet. And, to be sure, not everyone is able to access the new communications technologies that are helping to drive globalisation. However, the possibility that those that are excluded from the rights and priviledges enjoyed by citizens of the west might be protected from the consequences of globalisation and might be eventually be included in these privileges is enabled by a key feature of globalisation itself. This is that in a globalised world we are more likely to position our views in relation to a far greater range of human perspectives. In other words, globalisation involves “comparative interaction of different forms of life.’ (Robertson, 1992:27) This process can be called relativisation, which is a process that affects both individuals and states.

A more specific and more detailed exploration of the ways in which the ‘comparative interaction of different forms of life’ may help to transform our world for the better can be found in theories of global civil society. There are many different versions of the theory of global civil society, but at its most optimistic it is envisaged that the key to the democratisation of forces of globalisation lies not in human rights regimes but in the development of networks of cooporation between international actors (NGO’S) who can place pressure on both states and international authorities through the exchange of opinion within a global public sphere (Keane, 2003). Just as national civil societies ensured that national markets were socially embedded with moral and ethical norms, so global civil society may have this impact on the global economic order. The exposure of some of the unsavoury practices of certain global companies, such as Nike and BP, by NGO’S and the paradoxically named anti-globalisation movement, are surely already having such an impact. That said however, if we wanted to understand the forces that might render the prospect of a global civil society unrealized then there are few better theorists to turn to than Castells. That is if we put aside his economic and technological determinism.

References

Zygmunt Bauman (2000) Liquid Modernity Polity Press

Keane, John (2003) Global Civil Society Cambridge University Press

Castells, Manuel , (1996) The Information age: Economy, Society and Culture volume one. The Network Society Blackwell

Castells, Manuel (1998) The Information age: Economy, Society and Culture volume two. The Power of Identity Blackwell

Castells, Manuel (2000) The Information age: Economy, Society and Culture volume three. The End of Millenium Blackwell

Robertson, Ronald (1992) Globalisation Social Theory and Global Culture. London: Sage.

Saskia Sassen (1996) Losing Control? Columbia University Press

Economical status and family are among the most widely used terms in family economic and management, which have always been the focus of study, especially in recent years. However, these terms have been defined differently by different researchers. To define family, one needs to look at families in research-oriented ways; that can see a great deal of variation in how a family works, how they plan, and how they decide. Families today are expected to be more than just a bond between immediate blood relatives. Families are often seen including fictive kin and extended family members (Scott et al., 2003). Society’s current definition of family is completely different from that of the past. Nowadays, the nuclear family is seen as a novel situation that occurs with an ever decreasing frequency. Today’s norms include the single-parent household, the extended family household, and the blended family (Scott et al., 2003). Dealing with all of these new “types” of families brings about many interesting questions about how individuals within the family interact; feel about each other, who are family director, who controlled family and also other questions about the economic and educational situations of a family.

Family Economic Well-being status varies over the life span, from community to community, and within families. In the literature, researchers sometimes use family economic well-being to mean the macro economic situation of all families in the community and other times they use family economic well-being to describe specific micro family situations (Bauer and Braun, 2000). Family economic well-being deals with the ways in which families live and make a living. There are different ways of measuring economic well-being. When researchers use language and statistics to describe conditions such as living below poverty level, minority families, inner-city families, rural poor families, and single parents, they invoke and imply class, race, place, and family structure as the important aspects of living and working in communities. In reality researchers want to increase the stability of all families, over the life span, so that they have the ability to provide economical necessities for themselves and their families (Bauer, et al. 2000). To do this, we as researchers need to think more broadly about the economic well-being of families and what elements affect family economy.

Management practice is viewed as an investment in human capital. Income and earning potential is increased when people are used management and can work to get a result better than the past (Becker and Gary, 1991). On the other hand persons have less knowledge management will have one effect on family economy thus reducing financial resources in compare some body that has knowledge enjoying. More families who budgeted their money, compared to families who did not budget, believed that they could increase their satisfaction with financial management by planning expenditures (Beutler and Mason, 1987).

In addition to the elements which affect economic status, the researchers need to clarify how they measure economic status. There have always been different agreements to measure economic status; some researchers believe that health and economic status are closely related. Moreover, there is a clear agreement that income is related to health. Many researchers prefer to use educational or occupational level, while others use income to measure economic status (“Editorial, 1996; Medical, 1996).

It goes without saying that considering all the above mentioned issues, researchers intend to measure economic status of families related to managerial functions. What is considered very important in family issue in today’s world, apart from traditional issue, is economic dimension of family. In recent decades family traditional tasks such as intercourse, marriage, and childbearing changed and can consider some new patterns that replaced family functions (Lundberg and Pollak, 2007), one of them is family economic dimension.

Looking more attentively to family changes, we realize that other family patterns, including work and education have also changed. These changes, however, are due to the changes in family economic status. Becker (1991) considers the evolution of the family from primitive societies to the late twentieth century and concludes that many of the functions that families performed in traditional societies are now performed by the market or the state. The market has largely displaced the family in some activities, such as food production, and continues to encroach on other activities, such as food preparation (Becker and Gary, 1991). So for family functions can consider other dimensions that one of these dimensions is family economic which in order to achieve to these, researchers need to have some other researches. To cause this reason current study wants to determine, do managerial functions have any effect on family economic status?

1.2 Statement of the problem

There are several issues regarding this study. First and for most, is the separation of poor families from mainstream societies due to economical problem. Many poor families are struggling to survive in communities that often exacerbate rather than mitigate the disadvantages of poverty-communities where a lack of public resources, economic investment, and political power, sometimes serve to separate and isolate families from mainstream society (Holmes, 2000). Successful, happy, healthy children require families that are strong-families that love them, and also provide, nurture, support and teach them. To be a strong family is tough in high-poverty neighborhoods that offer few of the opportunities, networks, and supports that all families need and most families take for granted (Mccoy, 2001)

The insufficiency of wages and salaries and the need to train families to manage their limited sources of income is another issue. Wages and salaries on the average have not kept up with the cost of living, especially for housing (Bauer, 2000). The Increasing gap between the people who earn the most and those who earn the least results in problems for communities (Bauer, 2000). More jobs are available, but without benefits (health insurance, retirement plans, savings plans, etc.) communities are left with issues to solve to support health and daily living for families. Demographics drive the shifts in the population characteristics (Bauer, 2000).

These practical problems require critical thinking, decision making, communication and action related to “what should be done?” in order to enable individuals and families to narrow the difference that exists between the ideal “quality of life” and “the reality of life situation”. The ways individuals and families seek to solve practical problems in their everyday lives are shaped by their values and available resources. There are no exact rules for solving such problems because each individual and family circumstance is different (Engberg, et al. 1996; Fox, 1997).

Another reason which is worth mentioning is the need to improve the economical status of families who fail to manage their budget due to high debts level and lack of personal savings. Inefficacy of family members to manage their budget present is serious economic and societal problems. There is a great need to improve the financial well-being of families. Since the mid-1980s, low rates of saving and high household debt have characterized the American family. Without adequate savings, many families will have too little money to face their current financial needs, as well as maintain their standard of living in retirement (Cruces, 2003).

Many Iranian families face serious financial challenges despite a booming economy for the past years. The personal saving rate has dropped. Spending and borrowing have increased. In case of this study, a mind boggling problem which needs to be solved is that there are many people in Arak city who are occupied in agriculture, services and industry sections. According to reported economic journal of Arak Province (Takalo zadeh, 2006). Rate of occupation in services section has been 28.5 percent in agriculture, 36.5 percent in industry 35 percent in Arak city in 2006. And 30 percent of occupation rate in Arak province is related to the agriculture section (Takalo zadeh, 2006). The problem goes more highlighted in families with a single annual income. These families such as farmers have less knowledge compared with other categories and have to plan for longer time period. These kinds of families gain money during a year after selling their products. But they run out of money before the end of the year. For example they can afford life expenditure just for ten months, so they face economical problems for the other two months. However this research attempts to answer the families about above mentioned issues. There are many families in Arak who have just a limited single monthly salary. For example employees, laborers, drivers, teachers etc. Wages for these categories of jobs are paid once a month. But these types of families have problem with how to spend money. These families are not aware of the strategies of keeping to their budget. They do not have enough knowledge about how to manage their money. And generally families do not know how to manage their money and use it in a better way. Also they do not know how to schedule their payments throughout the month.

However, limited resources and badly-paid jobs have not always been the main problems. Owning money by itself does not support family economic stability. Inability to manage the budget and make long term decisions for the future of the family is what really matters to guarantee stability of family. Despite the economic boom in the recent years for families, many families have not made the decisions necessary to provide for a more stable future (Bauer, 2000). It is obvious that there are financial difficulties in some families with high income. One of the reasons of this phenomenon is to ignore the use of management science in their spending. On the other hand, in Arak city’s families or even in almost all Iranian families little or no attention is paid to family or home management. It will be tried to express the degree of significance of relationship between management functions and family economics status and make justifiable opinions to fasten this relation with respect to the people’s income, culture and religions.

One of the most important reasons to discussed and study about family economics status by researchers on these days is that develop and improvement of countries in all dimensions will start from family. In Iran, at the state and national levels the accomplishment of programs relevant to the family economic and managerial functions education to the families and in the level of family has received little attention.

1.3 Research questions

Current research on base previous researches to want examines the relationship between managerial functions practice and family economic status. Given past research has very generally looked at the family economic status and functions of management, this study seek to answer the research questions:

1-What is the economic status of families’ in Arak?

2-What is the level of managerial functions involved by the families?

3-Are there any relationship between the levels of managerial functions involved by the family and economic status?

4- Which factors are affecting family economic status?

5- What can be done

1.4 Research Objectives

The primary objective of the current research is to determine the relationship between management functions practice and family’s economics status in Arak city. Also current research has several specific objectives:

1- To evaluate the economics status of families.

2- To determine the level of managerial functions practiced by the families.

3- To compare relationship between the level of managerial functions involved by the family and economics status.

4- To determine the factors effecting family economic status?

1.5 Research Hypothesis

As a part of this investigation, several hypotheses were employed to determine relationship between variables in this research.

1-There is a significant relationship between uses of management functions and family economic status.

2-There is significant difference between levels of managerial functions practice by families.

3-There is significant relationship between levels of managerial functions practiced and family economics status.

4-There is significant relationship between factors effecting on family economic status.

1.6 Scope of study

This research focuses on economical status of different types of families in Arak city that contributes towards enhanced management methodologies and how it affects the economy status of families.

This study will address the perceptions of families from economical and managerial dimensions. The information sought includes family manager attributes, family economic status, and level of education, kind of family expenditure, and finally attitude, knowledge of family managers about family economic programs, family administration, and family management toward economic dimension. This research also engages in participation-observation over two year’s period (2007-2009).

1.7Significance of study

Considering the above-mentioned problems, the results of this study will be of great importance to family units who will hopefully apply the managerial strategies to improve economical aspects of the family.

In addition, result of this study will be especially interesting to policy makers and managers at this time in societies because they will understand that improving family economics is a great help to societies economic development. Also, managers will be aware of managerial functions and their basic roles not only in families but also in organizations and societies. These functions can be important and fundamental.

The significant of study also arise from the fact that there has been little research performed on the relationship between managerial functions and family economics status. Empirically the findings product by this study will enlarge the knowledge concerning family economic and management functions

Last but not least, one of the most important implications of this study is that researchers and practitioners will be able to develop effective programs for families especially in economical aspects. It goes without saying that the researcher of this research can increase his knowledge using the results of this study, to maintain a better understanding of the managerial functions, how they work, and family economic status in Arak. The important study highlighted will reveal much about the long term impact of management in terms of economic development of the province. Iran is one of the few countries that have not shared in the global trade expansion. This is partly but significantly responsible for the country’s lackluster economic performance. Therefore, this research will actually dive into more complex issues that can lead to better solution family’s orientation for socio-economy improvement.

Society, families and individuals indeed need the knowledge, skills and attitudes developed in the study of family economics to enable them to cope effectively with unexpected and unfamiliar problems emerging in their everyday lives (Sumonchat, 2000).

One matter raised of this research is that it doesn’t seem logical to compare the effects of management functions on family economic status with different family’s income. The answer is that even poor families can employ the management policies to learn how to better use their budget and it will be useful for the poor family. On the other hand, new families are not even familiar with conventional family economics rules, because there is no close relationship in families in new modern societies. In fact, the family economic rules have been passed to children by parents. So this research also will be useful for new families in societies.

1.8 Literature review
1.1.8 Definition of terms
Economic status

Conceptual definition: The overall all degree of family’s economic situation.

Operational Definition: In this research, economic status of the family is measure by three indicators: family income, ownership or asset and family expenditure or consumption.

Family income

Conceptual Definition: this refers to the total income that earned by family members.

Operational Definition: The respondent was asked about the amount of monetary income in the month that received by each person in the sampled family, 15 years old and over. Total family income is the algebraic sum of amount reported separately for money wages or salary, rent land, rent house, money received from spouse, son, daughter, grandchildren and relatives, agricultural activity, pension, welfare, business, dividend, investment of shares, royalty and other specify income by family members.

Monthly expenditure

Conceptual Definition: This refers to the total amount paid for home expenditure per month.

Operational Definition: In the survey, the respondent was asking about the total amount of money that paid for all family expenditure used during the last months. The respondent was asked include food and materials, house rental, utilities, education and training, health care, clothing, travel, transportation, leisure, taxes, saving and other specify item that should spend during month in the family.

Ownership

Conceptual Definition: Refer to the total family asset, such as home, land, garden, factory, buildings and other financial valuable things that are immovable and transferred through generations.

Operational Definition: In the survey, the respondent was asked about owner of, house factory, private company and private garden for vacation home.

Age

Conceptual Definition: this refers to the respondent’s age.

Operational Definition: the respondent’s age was obtained through completion of the roster section of the questionnaire.

Educational level

Conceptual Definition: this refers to the level of education achieved by individual.

Operational Definition: the respondent was asked to indicate the highest grade, level of schooling completed. Allowable values include, (0) unread (1) No formal education, (2) Primary school, (3) Secondary school, (4) High school, (5) Diploma graduate, (6) Associate’s degree, (7) Bachelor degree, (8) Master’s degree, (9) PhD or professional degree, (10) Islamic school.

Economic well-being (subjective)

Conceptual Definition: The overall all degree of family’s economic situation.

Operational Definition: in the survey, economic well-being of the family is measured by these indicators: family income, household expenditure in food materials, clothes, transportation, and non food materials.

Management functions

Conceptual Definition: The functions that make up management are planning, organization, direction, coordination, controlling (supervision and evaluation). (Hurst K. and S, 1991; Lauri and Salantera, 1995; Marquis, 1998; Marquis and Huston, 1996).

Operational Definition: in this research, management functions of the family supervisor (householder) are measured by five indicators (functions): planning, coordinating, organizing, directing and control.

Family

Conceptual Definition: There are many definitions of the family in the literature. But one of the reasons to chosen these definition is that the below definition is clear, complete and deep, so researcher chosen from the Vanier institution to the family (Pauline Vanier, 2005).

Any combination of two or more persons who are bound together over time by ties of mutual consent, birth and/or adoption or placement and who, together, assume responsibilities for variant combinations of some of the following:

Physical maintenance and care of group members

Addition of new members through procreation or adoption

Socialization of children

Social control of members

Production, consumption, distribution of goods and services, and

Affective nurturance-love. (Pauline Vanier, 2005)

Family size

Conceptual definition: Refer to the number of people live at home.

Operational Definition: in the survey, family size was ask from respondents and it included, husband, wife, children, and another relative that live with family members at one home.

The economic family

Concept is use to describe a census family. An economic family consists of all persons in a household who are related to each other by blood, marriage, common-law or adoption.

Family Economics

It is concerned with the determinants of levels of living for families and individuals and with the possibilities for changing these levels to better meet personal resources in productive activity and end uses by families and individuals as they interact with other social and economic systems to achieve their standards of living. (Reynolds and Abdel-Ghany, 2001).

Household Management

It has been defined by Berger as an applied field aimed at helping individuals and families improve their quality of life through effective decision making and resource use(Berger, 1994).

Family financial planning and counseling

It is defined by the Financial Planning Association as the process of establishing personal and financial goals and creating a way to reach them. A plan must be implemented, monitored, and reviewed periodically so that adjustments can be made, if necessary, to assure that it continues to move one toward his or her financial goals.

1.9 Limitation of research

Two or the three fields together are linked to one another, namely economics, sociology and the management fields. The most important problem in this research is that two big fields in science must be combined and put together. This research will be joint management, economic and sociology. So the research is a new one in this regard, and moreover, it is very difficult to conduct.

The other limited in this research is that there are several economic different observations (point of view) in one side and then there are several kinds of families and these are very broad, such as, connected family (continually), broken family (torn family) divorced family and etc, from another side. So, different kinds of families must be distinguished and this is an important and required part of this research.

Cultural variation in different families such as rules and customs, values, norms, religious beliefs, economical, political, and social approaches, their accents and clothing are very different from one another.

The other limited in current research is that researcher use a variety of families to do a comparative research and compare families’ income dimensions.

Another limited is that, there is a variety of families in rural and urban area. Researcher must first distinguish what kind of families will be investigated? (Urban or rural families). Because of the role of men in two kinds of families is very different. For example in rural families, the role of men is more important than women.

The last limited in this research is enlargement (development) of restricted areas. That must be limited and distinguished in the future. Getting the information about economic status of families is not an easy job and cannot be clearly represented, especially when they are asked to tell about their real income and quality of their life.

So it is important to ensure the unawareness of families about the research.

The Arab World refers to the 22 Arabic speaking countries located between the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Arabian Sea in the east, and the Mediterranean Sea and Turkey in the north to the Indian Ocean and mid-Africa in the south. It consists of an area of around 14 million square kilometres, most of which is desert except for the coastal areas. There are approximately 250 million people living in the Arab World, with the majority being Muslims, although there are many from other religions too. Historically, the Arab World was not divided into states, but now it is, and its 22 countries form many popular regions such as the Gulf area, the Middle East, North Africa and the Sahara. History, language, religion are some of the many unifying factors that exist in the consciousness of every Arab man. After gaining independence, some Arab states and some memorable Arab leaders tried their best to reunify the Arab World, but their efforts were in vain, especially after many failed attempts such as the rise of the United Arab Republic between Syria and Egypt in 1985. From then on, all Arab states set off on the journey of improving and developing themselves depending on their potential power. Although the Arab World is experiencing a state of stability, there are still many social and economical problems threatening the development of many of the Arab states.

The first problem to discuss here is unemployment in Arab countries, which is the highest in the world and threatens to spread poverty in the Arab World; “the increase in the number of workers was not matched by an equal increase in employment in the Arab World and with the collapse of the oil revenues and the implementation of stabilization and structural adjustment program, employment growth slowed or became negative; as a result unemployment increased” (1). According to the annual report of the Arab Labor Organization, 14% of the population are unemployed, which means that there are more than 17 million Arab people without work. There are many reasons for this: first, the failure of development due to the political situation in the Arab World. Civil wars and conflicts are considered the main obstacles that hinder development. Second, the poor economic performance of the Arab governments due to poor administrative tools and corruption. Third, the failure of education to meet the requirements of the job market and the neglect of technical and applied education, which is important to widen the labour market. Finally, the failure of the governments to create attractive investment opportunities that could increase the number of jobs that are available, and the weak laws that, if strengthened, could encourage investments. This dangerous problem has devastating effects, and so Arab states should do their best to encourage the private sector to increase the number of job opportunities for unemployed people. This can be achieved through issuing a number of laws to urge businessmen and companies to get involved in the national market. In addition to encouraging investment within the Arab World, investment in the Western countries should be encouraged, as well as opening the national market to foreign firms and companies to set up effective projects, which could help the national economy improve.

Another social problem in the Arab World is that women do not have access to all of the rights stated in the Islam religion, despite the fact that the majority of Arabs are Muslims. In Islam, women have the right to learn, to live a good life, to agree or refuse marriage, to work, and many others, and it is totally forbidden to deny them of any of these. In the Arab World, many women are not given these rights, and in some Arab countries, girls under the age of 15 are forced to get married to older men without their consent. One example is a 12-year-old Yemeni girl, who was forced into marriage and then died during painful childbirth, which also killed her baby. Moreover, according to UN data, the proportion of women’s representation in Arab parliaments is only 3.4% (as opposed to 11.4% in the rest of the world). In addition, 55% of Arab women are illiterate (2), and in many parts of the Arab World they are not allowed to continue their learning, despite this being a fundamental right in Islam that considers the education of women in particular as essential for the construction of society. Furthermore, women do not enjoy the right to vote in many Arab countries. For example in Kuwait, they do not have the right to elect until two years. This bad situation for women in the Arab World should be considered and analysed as soon as possible, because women’s role in society cannot be denied, otherwise the whole of society will be threatened. Therefore, the improvement of education for women and the elimination of high female illiteracy rates in the Arab World is an urgent necessity, and can be achieved by making primary school education both free and compulsory.

The most dangerous problem in the Arab World is the widespread illiteracy, which is threatening future development. The UN report found that one third of Arabs are illiterate and only $10 per person is spent on scientific research (3). The report also found that almost nine million children of primary school age are not attending school in the Arab World. Based on the general census of the population for the year 2004, the illiteracy rate among those aged 10 years and over was 45.7%, with a significant disparity between male and female – males had an illiteracy rate of 29.8% as opposed to females at 62.1% (4). No one can deny how serious this problem is, since it is the cause of many other problems such as poverty, disease and death. The highest rate of illiteracy recorded is among women, since the female education in the Arab World is seen as less important, especially in rural areas. The Arabic governments, organisations and international organisations must cooperate and work together to reduce this high rate of illiteracy, and an enlightenment campaign must be held in the rural areas to let people know the importance of the education of women in society. Arab governments have to make education more accessible and increase the number of schools, especially in rural areas and deserts, where the rate of illiteracy among nomads is very high. They must also reward those who become literate. However, these plans are in vain if there is no money available, so a respectable amount of money should be specified for the purpose of fighting illiteracy among Arabic people. This money can support all efforts to improve education and be spent on helping poor people to continue learning, especially if we take into consideration that poverty is one of the main causes of illiteracy.

In conclusion, unemployment, illiteracy and the neglect of women are just some of the social and economic problems of the Arab World. Unemployment is a serious challenge because it is the cause of many social and economic problems, and can lead to an increase in crime, poverty, illiteracy and humiliation, as people who do not work do not have enough money to live a respectable life. Women in the Arab World should enjoy their rights that are stated in Islam because if they are educated, they can play an essential role in life, which benefits the whole of society. In Islam it is said that if you teach a male, you teach an individual, but if you teach a female, you teach a whole nation. The last problem that we discussed was the problem of illiteracy in the Arab World and how this hinders progress and development, and causes many social and economic problems such as poverty and a high rate of fertility, which in turn is another serious problem. It is clear that all of these problems are related to each other in one way or another, so Arab governments must be aware of how to face these through working hard and planning to prevent them from worsening. Furthermore, rich Arab states such as Qatar and UAE can participate in the efforts to reduce the suffering in poor areas. For example, the campaign led by Dubai to help blind people get their sight back was a great success all over the world.

REFERENCES
Rivlin, P. Economic policy and performance in the Arab World. p.36.
Al-Quds Al-Arabi (London), December 4, 1999.
http://www.menassat.com/?q=en/news-articles/7272-un-arab-world-rife-illiteracy-lacks-innovation
http://www.yementimes.com/DefaultDET.aspx?i=1226&p=front&a=2

Nowadays, the world population just over 6 billion and consistently estimate to increase to 9 billion in the next 50 years. The growth rate is mostly come from those developing countries, especially from Africa. Nevertheless, the birth rate which we would call it as population growth rate is decreasing in Hong Kong. The local birth rate reached the lowest level in the world. According to the report from the Census and Statistics Department, around 30,000 babies will be generated by mainland couples while 69,000 will be born in Hong Kong each year. In 2006, 984 babies were produced each 1000 expectant mothers. The estimation of the following 30 years, the birth rate will be lower than 900 babies would be born with each 1000 expectant mothers.

We can use the graph from Census and Statistics Department to indicate the change by birth rate. In the fig. 1.1, the lines are representing the population in 1996 while bars are representing the 2006s. We would see that the population in Hong Kong is going to form a reverse triangle as fewer are born in the base. Moreover, we would see that the birth rate was continuing decrease from 1981 to 2006. Basically, the government has been put aware on the issue. In one of a meeting of legislative council, the councilors have put out this as one the items of agenda.

The decrease in birth rate may help to save the sustainable resources in the world, but it would cause out many society problems as well. Actually, aging problem is a serious issue happening in the society. And, this would cause out many consequences to make the society become poor. Aging problem will lead the tax payer having a heavy tax. As the decreasing birth rate cause out, fewer tax payers will need to fall into the tax system. While the number of elderly would increase to form an unhealthy population, the Government would have a financial problem on subsiding them. The government need to bear heavy costs on medical services, elderly health care and retirement such as social security allowance.

On the other hand, the education system may need a reform. The demand would decrease as fewer children entering the education system. Those schools will be terminated by a low birth rate, and employers like teachers will be being unemployed. This is already happened in the society in 2006. Many schools are warned to shut down by insufficient students. As a result, encouraging the birth rate is a must. Recently, the government noticed that the importance of having a good birth rate and formed a committee to put concern and finding out solutions in low birth rate issue. The effective way is the government encourage the citizens to improve the birth rate.

1.2 RESEARCH OBJECTIVE

In this study, we would like to help to find out the reason of causing low birth rate.

Besides, we would not only want to know the causes but also want to find out solutions and the ways of government would able to give a hand. Therefore, our research objectives will be set as the followings:

Understand the reason of low birth rate occur
Evaluate the effectiveness of various methods to increase birth rate
Understand the value of having baby (promotion purpose)
Evaluate the impact of various media on the decision to have a child
Obtain the demographic of response
1.3 CONTRIBUTION

Through this marketing research, we would define clear why the low birth rate was caused out. Afterwards, we can find out the most effective solution to improve the birth rate, in order to prevent the next generation to pay the heavy tax to the government which is our generation and beyond. On the other hand, we would the report will be indicated out that the effective way of promotion by the government which he citizens would thinks it does work. It is beneficial to the government whether the aging problem is solved, the financial burden will reform. The government is able to put the subsidies on the other ways that make Hong Kong becoming a most successful city that people would like to live.

2.1 EXPLORARATY RESEARCH

To begin our research, we may need to use exploratory research to provide the insights of the low birth rate problems. From the various types of exploratory research technique, we have used secondary data analysis and focus group when doing this project.

Secondary data

Low birth rate which is a big issue for the Hong Kong government, so there are plenty of data about this issue on the website of the Census and Statistics Department and also the newspaper. The reasons why we are using the secondary data are because they are low cost and useful as background information. Also, some of the data are realistic as those data are collected from the official department of Hong Kong Government. As the government highly concern about the low birth rate, there are policies and promotions about how to improve low birth rate, which helps us on creating the questions for our questionnaire.

Focus Group

Focus group is a form of qualitative research in which a group of people are asked about their attitude towards a product, service, concept, advertisement or idea. And there will be a moderator to introduce the topic of discussion and to encourage the group to discuss. Using focus group can allow the participants to discuss their true feeling and convictions, fast to collect data, easy to execute and flexible with low cost.

Forming this focus group, our purpose is to understand the reason of low birth rate, evaluate the effectiveness of various methods to increase the birth rate, understand more the value of having a baby, evaluate the impact of various media on the decision to have a child, obtaining the demographic of response. After doing the focus group, we can combine the observations to understand the culture, the social group, sampling the sites to study, and creating news issues or topics we didn’t think of.

We would form 2 focus groups which consist of 6 respondents each. Besides, we need to hire a professional analyst to lead the focus group on the discussing track. Then, we need to book a one-way mirror room to observe the progress of the focus group. The most important is we should jot down the discussion by notes as an alternative way if the video recording devices does not work. The topic of discussion was focus on five main issues we focused on reasons affecting the birth rate, methods to improve birth rate, value on birth rate, ways to promote generation, demographic. To acquire the information we need, an analyst is needed to lead the focus group to discuss on the aspects. We did set the suggest questions:

How do you think to generate a child?
What are the costs to generate a child?
What do you think the consequence to generate a child?
Which ways do you suggest to encourage generation?
How do you think the policies of government promotion?
Summary of Findings Section

We have been held focus groups in the March. After the focus group, we were given out some ideas of the low birth rate issue.

In the focus groups people are all agree the late marriage is the trend in Hong Kong, many ladies are become focusing on their work. But they conclude that the cost of having a baby is the main cause of low birth rate. They need to quit their job, after the baby growth, their job opportunities will be probably lower as they disconnected with the society. They discussed that the birth rate from the middle class is important to improved.

Later, they discuss that the method to improve the birth rate. Most of them thought that the government subsidies are the ways to help. Education allowance is the most effective as most of them agreed. It is because they think it is a long-term subsidy that their children need to study nearly 10 years. It is benefit if it would save their cost. However, no one concern on public housing because they thought that it is relate to the marry cost, not related to having a baby. They would think that the value of having a baby is to generate their breed. Most of them think that the TV commercial is the effective way to encouraged by government. It is because animation and sound would give them memorized.

2.2 QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH

To choose a suitable method to fit with our case, we would like to use the mall intercept personal interviews for collecting primary data. The process involves stopping the targets, screening them for appropriateness, and either administering the survey on the spot or inviting them to a research facility located in the mall to complete the interview. And, we decided to set up in Women Health Centre and the Family Planning Association of Hong Kong etc, therefore we are able to get the result that related to our expectation and purpose.

The characteristic of the method is confined place to conduct the survey but speed of data collecting is fast, and conductors are easier to reach the assigned quantity with a specific time. It will have the highest degree of interviewer influence of answers. Although geographical flexibility is confined in a selection place, we can poll a large number of target respondents with a successful planning. There will have low anonymity of respondents however, the respondents may not actively to cooperate. It is difficult to follow up or call back but it is not an actual problem. Essentially, interviewers can provide clear explanations for the questions asked, respondents will be clearer to answer the questions through face-to-face interview. So, the possibility of respondent misunderstanding will be the lowest.

On the other hand, if the respondent cooperation is not enough to meet the planned quantity, we may also use phone survey to back up mall intercept personal interview. The advantages of using phone survey is competitive reduce cost and the respondent cooperation are good. So, it is a good back-up proposal for anything goes wrong in the mall intercept personal interview.

There are some measurements guiding us in design our questionnaire. We should concern that each questions should have a reason behind asking and the type of answers you would like to receive y open-ended or close-ended. Later, we should concern on the questionnaire wording. In designing our questionnaire, we have avoided long questions that will give people confusing by using short and clear wording. Secondly, we avoid emotional and socially desirability response by loaded and assumption questions. So, the validity will be increased. Be sure all answer choices are mutually exclusive, check for ambiguity in wording the question, and ensure if the respondents can interpret the meaning of words differently. We also put aware on the personal pronouns (gender references) – never use only him (his) or her (her) unless you are referring to a specific gender. Be specific, rather than general questions and word them so that they communicate uniform meaning. Avoid using double negatives, especially possible when using Agree/Disagree.

2.3 RESEARCH INSTRUMENT
Scale

There are several scale in setting questionnaire, interval scale, nominal scale, ordinal scale and ratio scale.

We used Interval Scale in Q1, Q2, Q3 and Q4 in our questionnaire. An interval scale is a measurement scale in which a certain distance along the scale means the same thing no matter where on the scale you are, but where “0” on the scale does not represent the absence of the thing being measured. The Fahrenheit and Celsius temperature scales are examples. It is uniquely classifies, in preserves order and equal intervals.

We used Nominal Scale in Q.5B, Q.5C, Q.5D, Q.5E in our questionnaire. A nominal scale is really a list of categories to which objects can be classified. For example, asking the gender and give “Male” and “Female”, for asking status, given “Single” “Married” and “Divorce”. The data so classified are termed categorical data, which are reflecting the classification of objects into different categories.

We used Ordinal Scale in Q.5A, Q.5F and Q.5G in our questionnaire. An ordinal scale is a measurement scale that assigns values to objects based on their ranking with respect to one another. For example, Q.5G, we are asking about the monthly income of each target ordinance, from [1] Less than $5000 to [5] above $30,000. While you know that [5] is having more income than [1], but there is no implication that [5] is twice times more than [1]. All we know is that there are 5 categories, with obviously that [2] are having more income than [1], [3] are having more income than [2], etc. The higher the value assigned, the higher the category.

2.3.2 Pretest Procedure

It is very important for us to do the pretest before the questionnaire being publicized; the aim of pretesting questionnaire is to ensure that it can be clearly understood. Since the questionnaire may have a lot of mistakes, therefore, we need to conduct and find out the information on that issue. Correct all the mistakes in the questionnaire are necessary, if the survey did not properly set, the purpose will not be achieved to conduct the accurate information what we looking for.

For our questionnaire, in order to achieve the effectiveness of pretest, we are going to read the questionnaire for at least 15 times after setting. Besides, we are also going to ask for 15 respondents to test our questionnaire. Finding correct and relevant respondents can help to increase the efficacy of pretest. The varieties respondents would be desire for our Low Birth Rate questionnaires are the professionals, such as English teachers; lecturers, schoolmates from universities, and also our parents. We chose them for the questionnaire pretest procedure, since some of them have sufficient knowledge to state out our problems, for example, English teachers can correct our grammar and spelling mistakes, rectify the question wording into more format type. Lecturers can check the flow of questions and give suggestions on the question, ensure that we are using the multiple-grid format and have been separated them into variety of groups before conducting. And, some of them are easy to reach, like our schoolmates, their feedbacks help us to predict our target ordinance reaction to the questionnaire, they also may help to estimate the time-taking. After all, we can rearrange the follow up and one by one.

Use our questionnaire as an example, after the pretest procedure; we rectify the question wording to make the questionnaire become more clarify. Such as, using “Very Unimportant” and “Very Important” to replace “Most Important” and “Least Important”. Use full sentence, “Are you working now? (If yes, please continue to answer the following questions. Otherwise, jump to i??Hi?z)” instead of a single word “Occupation” etc. (Appendix fig. 2.2, fig. 2.3)

2.4 SAMPLING

Sampling is the simple way to reach out targets with a subset of the population instead of reaching the entire population. Compare with reaching the entire population, sampling will help to save time, cutting cost for budgeting and manpower. Firstly, we should figure the target group out. Our target group is men and women who have visited Women Health Centre and the Family Planning Association. It is because they will have a brief concern and knowledge on the birth rate issue. To reach our target group, we would use the convenience sampling indeed. There is no sampling frame while it is actually a non-probability sampling method. Those respondents are unknown member form our target group because of using the non-probability sampling. Our interviews will select the most available targets arbitrary. However, we would set the 200 respondents as our sample size.

As the mall intercept personal interview is suitable to associate with our research, it has many advantages indeed. First, the mall intercept personal interview can be conducted faster and inexpensive. Also, the mall intercept can poll a large number of respondents and control the speed of the survey. As we want to poll a large number of respondents in target group, we decided to interview in Women Health Centre and the Family Planning Association of Hong Kong within 3 days. As the mall intercept is a face-to-face contact with the interviewees, it will lead us easier follow-up and make corrections of the unclear or misunderstanding answers. These advantages will encourage us to conduct a better survey.

Unfortunately, there is no perfect method existing in the world. We would just choose the method which consist the least disadvantages. In the mall intercept, we would require a lot of labour force to conduct. This will lead the research cost climb higher by hiring cost for interviewers. Furthermore, low accuracy of the survey is also a disadvantage of this method. It is difficult to follow up if we find out any problem while analyzing the answers. Further, the result sampling may not represent the entire population in a place. Therefore, we would find out some solutions to fix them. We would not employ volunteers as our group members can be the volunteers in the research. Perhaps, cost of the employment will be relatively lower. In order to improve the accuracy, setting up more intercept places for interview can enhance the representative level of the results. Also, after conducting the survey, interviewees would politely to ask the respondents to leave their contact information if they are willing to do that. Hopefully, it may improve the disadvantages of the survey method.

We would do the survey over 3 selected places within 3 day. On 28th April, we would conduct in the Family Planning Association at Wan Chai while conducting in the Women Association in Tuen Mun in the following day (29th April). Finally, we would reach the Family Planning Association at Wong Tai Sin in 30th April. These 3 locations will be assigned a team to play the role as interviewers. Each team will consist of 3 member do stay within the place in the operation hours. The selection of those 3 places is due to improving the accuracy of the sampling over territories. In addition, easy to reach who concern birth rate, prepare to have a child or even avoid having child as well.

Despite all the difficulties and hard times in the long distance relationship or a marriage, it is possible to maintain the relationship or the marriage. The couple is capable to survive the separation. It takes dedication and hard work to make the marriage or relationship work.

Introduction

A long distance relationship among couples especially with a spouse who is in the military is sometimes difficult and maintaining the relationship or the marriage can be very straining. There are so many setbacks and hard times that are witnessed in the process of making such relationships work-out. It is not simple to maintain the long relationship. The couple misses the close touch that exists between the partners and sometimes they miss each other extremely. Such partners are obliged to work together and devise techniques and ways that will make the relationship stand the test of time (Bell and Brauer-Bell 62).

Discussion

There are so many ways that the partners would feel close to their spouse despite thousand of miles between them. One of the ways to do so is to talk on the cell phones. Couples ought to take advantage of are plans by the cellular services where there are unlimited talk time especially in the evenings or during the weekends and also during holidays. Alternatively, the opportunity presented by social networks such as Facebook or even Myspace.com, may assisted military couples to maintain productive conversations on regular basis. Long-distance relationships require a bit of creativity as well as a sense of play if couples are to survive unhealthy criticism from friends or even relatives. As such spouses ought to avoid involving skeptic individuals when resolving their marriage issues as such parties will only aggravate the apparent problem for their personal gain.

Another way is by sending gift packages, perhaps more often. It is exciting to receive a specialty-packaged gift from spouses. There is always an attached meaning to a gift that is given by a lover. It helps to portray true love, care, concern and appreciation from such partners. Example of these gifts may include CD bearing a collection of best love songs, or even sending a collection of pictures that you have taken together, teddy bear or even a cute blanket, among others. These gifts help in drawing the memories of the perceived commitments that other partner has towards them. Refreshing such memories help in maintaining the relationship during unanticipated trying and challenging times (Guldner 136)

Long-distance may offer a good opportunity to the partners to develop individual-relationships which are deemed paramount in enhancing love and creativity in marriage-life (Bell and Brauer-Bell 20). For example, several months that an individual spends away from their partners can be more beneficial if the concerned spouses translate this moment into a positive-activity oriented session. It’s only through creativity and positive-self reflection that a long-distance relation works through trials and undying challenges. Such positive activities may involve a search for new hobby, artistic undertakings such as poetry or painting that can be used in communicating love messages to loved ones far away. In fact, such an undertaking offers an opportunity for individual growth in the relationship.

In arguments, the partners should understand that there will be no physical intimacy moment useful in erasing relationships pains. In this case, spouses ought to avoid defensive communication approaches such as being harsh, intimidating and rude as such moves create suspiciousness among partners. Individuals alleged of infidelity are always employ defensive communication skills. This is because the long distance communication is more valued or weighted more heavily than face-to- face communication. The partners should take advantage of the distance in cases where arguments arise and they both need time to think and rethink about the issue, and possibly table the discussion in later times for amicable resolutions. Finally, individuals with spouses working in the military can maintain their relationship by continually sharing basic ideas in loving building. Always sharing ideas and thoughts on how to move the relations ahead, is the key driving force that may see any long-distance relationship succeed. Keeping the signs of devotion and love fresh is a good way to ensure that the relationship is maintained (Tiger 168).

Conclusion

As evidenced by the above discussion, long-distance relationship among spouses can survive where the concerned parties portray concern, continued love/romance and productive sharing on all issues. Long distance relationships with spouses in the military are very manageable and can be maintained. There will be discouragements and hard times but when the two partners agree, and perhaps embrace acceptance on the entire situation love and trust will prevail. The perceived distance between partners only works to separate lover physically, but the enduring love is never changed. Premised on undying trust and love, the relationship is poised to survive hard as well as challenging moments.

Work cited
Bell, Chris and Brauer-Bell, Kate. The long-distance relationship survival guide: secrets and strategies from successful couples who have gone the distance. Berkeley, CA: Ten Speed Press, 2006.
Guldner, Gregory. Long Distance Relationships: The Complete Guide. Corona, CA: JFMilne Publications, 2004.
Tiger, Caroline. The Long-Distance relationship Guide. Philadelphia, PA: Quirk Books Publishers, 2007.

The Relationship Between Social Class and Health Inequalities
Introduction

The birth of the NHS in 1948 was greeted with considerable optimism. It was believed that a fully comprehensive welfare state where people had their needs taken care of from the cradle to the grave would bridge the gap between the haves and the have nots. Governments were optimistic that increasing social equity would lead to a healthy and long living population, it was not envisaged that demands on the health system would increase rather than decrease. Those who founded the NHS believed that a lot of people were ill because they could not afford to pay for healthcare. This group had got bigger over the years and it was believed that once the backlog had been dealt with then there would be a reduction in the number of people who needed health care (Moore, 2002). However, instead of decreasing the number of people using the NHS continued to grow, this was partly because the idea of what constitutes good health changes over time. People demanded better and higher standards of healthcare and medical advancements meant that conditions that people would have died from could now be cured. All of this cost money, more money than the founders of the health system had ever envisaged and therefore the health service lurched from one financial crisis to the next with its biggest shake up occurring in 1990.

During the last twenty years there have been significant changes in healthcare policy making and in the way in which the NHS operates. Most of these changes have occurred because of politician’s concerns over the rising cost of public health.

In the 1980s Margaret Thatcher’s Government introduced marketing and business strategies into the NHS to control expenditure on healthcare and to change the health service. The most important factor here was that of the internal market. Rather than health professionals and patients it was now purchasers and providers of healthcare. This created a two tier system that created inequalities between hospitals and between patients. It split the NHS into competing NHS Trust organisations and parts of the health service were privatised. In 1990 the Community Care Act came into force and many people who were previously institutionalised were released into the community. Most of this type of care is undertaken by social services in conjunction with the health service and with voluntary organisations. The Act placed extra burdens on families to care for ageing or disabled relatives (Walsh et al, 2000). Opponents of the system argued that marketisation would lead to greater inequalities in healthcare provision and the poorer sections of society would be even worse off. It is arguably the case that the people most affected by these changes have been those in the lower classes of society. At the start of the 1970s the mortality rate for working men in the lowest social class was twice as high as for those in the highest, but by the late 1990s the figure was three times higher. This was mainly due to a decrease in the mortality rate for the most well off members where between 1970 and 1990 the rate fell by 30% but only by 10% for members of the lower class (Walsh et al, 2000). The Conservative Government’s failure to address the recommendations of the report commissioned by them to investigate the relationship between social class and health inequalities has meant that class inequalities in the standard mortality rate and the rate of morbidity continue to be matters of substantial concern, and thus, areas for continuing research.

Epidemology

Epidemology is the study of health across populations rather than in the individual. It studies diseases and their spread, and how to control them. Within the study of health and illness social class is associated with physical risk factors including birth weight and obesity. It is also associated with economic factors and standards of housing and with the social and familial structure.There are detectable patterns of morbidity or illness associated with social class and death or mortality rate statistics also vary widely depending on a person’s class. Those who belong to the higher (capitalist) classes tend to live longer than those who are members of the working class. There is also a strong relationship between a person’s occupation and their life expectancy.^[1]

Standard Mortality Rates

Browne and Bottrill (1999) have identified some of the major inequalities in health and they contend that unskilled manual workers are twice as likely to die before the age of 65 as are white collar workers in the highest class. Analysis for life expectancy differences across England and Wales from 1972-1999 found that there had been a noticeable growth in inequality in this area. During 1997-1999 males in professional occupations tended to live 7.4 years longer than males in unskilled manual occupations. The differences for women in the same period and with respect to the same categories had risen to 5.7 years from 5.3 years in the period 1972-76 There are also regional differences, males born in Glasgow between 1999 and 2001 have a life expectancy of 69 years whereas males born in North Dorset may expect to live until they are 79. Cause of death also varies by social class the major areas of health which showed such differences were, Ischaemic heart disease, cerebrovascular disease, respiratory diseases andlung cancer. Semi-skilled and unskilled workers were five and half times more likely to die of respiratory diseases between the period 1986-1999 than were managerial and professional workers.

Patterns of limiting illness are also affected by social factors such as class. Forty three percent of all men were long term unemployed or had never worked and this group were five times more likely to suffer from limiting illnesses than were the nine percent that consisted of males in professional and managerial positions. During the twentieth century, as a result of improved living conditions and availability of healthcare, infant mortality had fallen substantially this is a useful indicator of the state of the nation’s health. Nevertheless differences do exist based on the economic status of fathers, birthweight, and mother’s country of birth. There was a 16% overall fall in infant mortality between 1994 and 2002 for babies whose fathers were in managerial and professional occupations, the mortality rate was highest among those babies who were registered by single mothers, for babies registered by both parents but whose fathers were in routine occupations, this fall was only 5%. The different rates within a thousand births across England and Wales are shown in figure 1 below.

The figures for the standard mortality rate, although lower than previous periods in the twentieth century, tend to show a noticeable increase during the late nineteen nineties.

Morbidity Rates

Asthana et al (no date given)^[3] undertook secondary analysis of the 1991-97 Health Survey for England found that there is a strong relationship between class and morbidity rates, although this is sometimes overshadowed by the effects of age The researchers also looked at other studies undertaken between 1984 and 2002 and again found a strong relationship between social class and self-reported morbidity. The study found that health inequalities by social class were not usually not the same for men as for women and concluded that there needed to be a separate class analysis by gender. The relationship between class and health inequalities therefore will vary by sex and will vary significantly by age. The study focussed on 16+ with respect to age and class was determined by the occupation of the head of the household. The study found that the impact of class differences was lower for the lower age groups, particularly those between 16 and 25.^[4] For every one professional man who suffers and later die from coronary heart disease there are three unskilled workers who suffer the same. Manual workers make up 42% of the workforce but account for 72% of work related accidents. Obesity is a killer and twice the number (28%) of women in unskilled work compared to 14% of professional women were obese, and suffered from related symptoms.^[5] Stomach cancer also varied with 2.2% of professionals suffering from this and 3% of manual workers, the figures were the same for cancer of the oesophagus. However deaths from cancer (of the alimentary system) varied widely. McCormak et al (1995) found that there was a strong positive relationship between social class and incidences of musculoskeletal disease such as osteoporosis. People of the lower social class were also at greater risk of developing type 2 diabetes (Ismail et al, 1999).Littlejohns and Macdonald (1993) identified a strong link between social class and respiratory diseases such as asthma and bronchitis, more unskilled workers tended to suffer in this way than did those from the professional classes.

There is a strong relationship between class and angina between the 45-75 age group and this increases with age. The difference is less marked for women but tends to peak in the age band 45-54.^[6] There is quite a significant class difference between women suffering from raised blood pressure, 17% of professional women reported this condition whereas in unskilled occupations 24% of women said they suffered from hypertension.^[7] People from the higher social class may be healthier because they tend to use medical services more often and also because they are more likely to eat a healthy diet. Most studies tend to take the view that although reported morbidity appears to have increased across the population generally the relationship between morbidity and social class has tended to remain much the same for the last ten years.

Strategies to Deal with Inequalities Between Social Groups

There have been a number of strategies that the Government has introduced since 1998 to combat ill health. In 2005 the Government published a report entitled Tackling Health Inequalities in an attempt to deal with the inequalities evident between different social groups. The Public Service Agreement states that by 2010 the Government will publish a progress report on whether and in what ways the measures to tackle health inequalities have been successful.

In 1998 the Government introduced Health Action Zones and twenty six of them were set up in 1999 in under-privileged areas, and where the health status of the population was particularly low. The notion behind the introduction of these zones was that tackling ill health and inequalities in health was not just a job for the NHS but should be tackled by different agencies such as social services, local housing departments and primary health trusts working together to combat inequalities and improve health. Health Action Zones work in two ways, firstly they try to reduce health inequalities by addressing the wider factors associated with ill health and secondly they attempt to improve the quality of health services and increase the access to them. There is, for example a strong link between asthma and cold, damp housing, one health action zone made improvements to heating systems, insulation and damp proofing in council and private homes where children had asthma. As a result of this there was a reduction of hospital admissions for children with asthma and they also had less time off school (Moore, 2002).

The Government also introduced something called NHS Direct, a telephone based helpline which gives advice to people who are unsure what to do about a health problem. The line not only makes health advice more accessible but in the long run saves money on unnecessary doctor or hospital appointments. NHS walk in centres are located in shopping centres and supermarkets as well as by the side of A&E Departments. They are staffed by nurses who give advice and treat minor health problems (Moore, 2002). In 2002 the Government set targets to reduce health outcome inequalities by 2010 with the standards of measurement being the infant mortality rate and the life expectancy rate overall. This standard was chosen because the long term trend in the gap in mortality between professional and manual workers evidenced the fact that it had increased by two and a half times since the period 1930-32. The latest figures on infant mortality and life expectancy show a continuing of widening inequality in those areas with the routine and manual work group being 19% higher than the total population in the period 2001-3. Certainly the Government are aware in this report that class inequalities are in health are a result of a number of inter-related factors including diet and housing. Government claim to have invested in the area of housing so that there are less people living in housing that is not suitable to positive health outcomes. They have also taken steps to ensure that vulnerable groups can afford to heat their homes properly in winter.

In their 2005 Report the Government say that their efforts to reduce child poverty are showing signs of success and that this will also contribute to children from less well off families having better health. The report claims that the number of deaths from heart disease and strokes is falling, that health inequalities generally are being reduced, and that the gap between disadvantaged areas and the country as a whole has fallen by 22% over the last six years. The Government aims to develop its Healthy Schools Programme in the most deprived communities which are measured by the number of children in receipt of free school meals.^[8] The introduction of Sure Start Centres and Healthy Living Centres provide pre-school education for nearly half a million children under four at over five hundred local centres and delivering health and social services to hard to reach groups. Government have increased their campaign to get people to give up smoking with massive advertising campaigns, smoking clinics and a ban on smoking in bars and restaurants comes into force in the summer of 2007. Community and school initiatives to back the five a day campaign for consumption of more fruit and vegetables shows that class five families are eating more than similar families in other areas.

The report claims that all new policy proposals by government departments also have to take into account health impacts and also how that might have an effect on health inequalities. There are some indications to assume that the gap in health outcomes is beginning to narrow, teenage pregnancies are beginning to fall and there has been an increase in the take up of flue vaccine among vulnerable groups since 2002. Local exercise action plans have been set up in some disadvantaged areas to encourage people to take more exercise and Government have managed to provide intermediate care for more people. Government seem to be taking a much more integrated approach to the problem, an approach which rests on the findings of the Acheson Report.

The Acheson Report

The Acheson Report needs to be seen in its historical context. In 1978 the Tory Government commissioned the Black Report to investigate the health of the nation. The Report was published in 1980 its brief had been to examine the reasons behind inequalities in health between different groups of people so that policy could be tailored to meet health needs. The report found that there were significant and worrying differences in health outcomes between the social classes. Research has come up with a number of different explanations for the relationship between social class and health inequalities. These are:

Artefact explanations

The artefact explanation is based on the argument that the growing gap between the classes is the result of a misreading of the statistics and claims for any relationship between the two should be treated with suspicion.

Social Selection explanations

The social selection explanation is that people who are in poor health are more likely to be unemployed or in low paid work whereas those who are healthy are more likely to have better jobs and living conditions.

Cultural explanations

Cultural explanations identify consumption and lifestyle as the main causes of poor health. Thus the individual must take responsibility for the sake of their health. Certainly some government campaigns have planted the suggestion that a change in lifestyle can leader to better health and greater longevity (Walsh et al, 2000).

Material explanations

Materialist explanations regard the cause of health inequalities as the result of wider structures of power, poor working conditions, low pay and associated living standards such as bad diet and poor housing and lack of education.

The Black Report concentrated heavily on materialist explanations of health inequality. It recommended that there was a need for a more effective anti-poverty strategy and for better education to combat such inequalities. Since that time there has been a considerable amount of subsequent research e.g. Macintyre (1997) that supported these recommendations, but Margaret Thatcher dismissed the findings on the basis that its recommendations were unworkable because of the amount of public expenditure that would be required to do this. The Conservative Government concentrated on cultural explanations and placed an emphasis on individual life style choices as being the result of inequalities in health.

The Black Report was highly influential on later health research and its findings have been used extensively to measure inequalities. Almost twenty years later in 1997 the Labour Government commissioned a similar report, the Acheson Enquiry. The resultant Acheson Report, published in 1998, also recognised the wider factors that contributed to the relationship between class and inequalities in health. The Acheson Report reiterated the fact that materialist explanations of ill health recognise the wider context of material deprivation and inequalities can only be reduced by addressing its root causes. Thus the Report recommended that any attempt at policy making across government departments had to pay attention to any particular health impacts, particularly as they affected those who were disenfranchised, and to legislate in favour of the less well off. The Report argued that the Government take an approach that used what it called both ‘upstream’ and ‘downstream’ approaches. Upstream work is characterised by initiatives such as Health Action Zones which attempts to improve health and reduce inequalities by working on the wider factors that contribute to poor health, such as insufficient income and poor standards of housing. There was a particular focus on the inequalities that faced young families and pensioners. There was a recommendation that an automatic Income Support top-up be paid to the poorest pensioners, i.e. those totally reliant on the state pension and who might not recognise their entitlement to further benefits. Such people are also at risk of what the report termed fuel poverty and they may feel unable to heat their homes properly. Government have now substantially increased winter fuel payments to all pensioners in an attempt to lessen inequality in this area. The Acheson Report recommended that there should be an increase in benefits for parents with young children, or a decent living wage for those in unskilled occupations, because bringing up a young child entailed more expense than when children got older. The Report also recommended that Government should address housing problems to ensure that people at the lower end of the social scale had decent living conditions. These recommendations were taken on board by the current government who have made inroads into addressing inadequate housing, have introduced a national minimum wage, and have restructured the tax and benefits system. Downstream work is connected with improvements in the NHS and easier access to health services, particularly in deprived areas. The Government has also made inroads in this are through the use of NHS Direct, Sure Start Centres, and Healthy Living Centres.

There were recommendations that health inequalities should be monitored and should take account of those groups who were often ignored in policy making, those from ethnic groups and in particular women who for too long had been seen only in terms of their husbands class and occupation.^[9] It was further recommended that Government improve conditions for pregnant mothers and for all women of child bearing age to reduce health inequalities and inequalities in infant mortality rates.

Conclusion

Medical researchers and social scientists investigate why people have poor health, what factors contribute to this and what might be necessary to improve people’s health. Social scientists in particular are interested in all aspects of social life and in the structures that govern society. They investigate why some people have better health than others, why we are a society of rich and poor stratified into classes, and what the wider social effects of the inequalities that result from stratification might be. This paper has looked at epidemiological evidence which indicates a strong and enduring relationship between class and health inequalities. It has found that when the aims of the welfare state for healthy nation and an end to inequity were not realised and Governments found the cost of providing healthcare for all was spiralling out of control. The answer has been, what some people describe as a gradual dismantling of the welfare state and of the health service. However, while such policies may have had adverse effects New Labour’s response to the recommendations of the Acheson Report offsets some of these effects and demonstrates an integrated attempt to reduce the inequalities in health outcomes that exist between social classes. Things are not yet on the decline but there is evidence to suggest that life expectancy and morbidity figures have remained much the same for the last ten years. With new policies coming into play, and Government promises to substantially reduce health inequalities by 2010 it might be said that there is some cause for optimism that the most worrying of these inequalities may, in the future, be satisfactorily addressed.

References

Acheson, D. 1998. Independent Inquiry into Inequalities in Health Report London, HMSO

Asthana, S Gibson, A. Moon, G. Brigham, P and Dicker J (no date given accessed 18/3/06) The Demographic and Social Class Basis of Inequality in Self-Reported Morbidiity: An Exploration Using the Health Survey for England http://eprints.libr.port.ac.uk/archive/00000016/01/jechdiv3.pdf

Black Report Inequalities in Health London, DOH 1980

Browne, K. and Bottrill, I. 1999. “Our unequal, unhealthy nation”, Sociology Review,9

Giddens, A. 2001 4^th ed. Sociology, Cambridge, Polity Press.

Ismail, A.A., Beeching, N.J., Gill, G.V. and Bellis, M.A. (1999) ‘Capture-recapture-adjusted prevalence rates of type 2 diabetes are related to social deprivation’, QJM: Monthly Journal of the Association of Physicians, vol 92, no 12, pp 707-10.

Littlejohns, P. and Macdonald, L.D. (1993) ‘The relationship between severe asthma and social class’Respiratory Medicine, vol 87, pp 139-43.

McCormick, A., Fleming, D. and Charlton, J. (1995) Morbidity statistics from general practice: Fourth national study,1991-1992, London: HMSO.

Macintyre, S. 1997. “The Black Report and beyond: What are the Issues?” Social Science and Medicine, 44

Moore, S. 2002 3^rd ed. Social Welfare Alive Gloucestershire, Nelson Thornes

Townsend, P. Davidson, N. and Whitehead, M. (eds) 1988 Inequalities in Health, the Black Report and the Health Divide Harmondsworth, Penguin

Walsh, M. Stephens, P. and Moore, S. 2000 Social Policy and Welfare. Cheltenham,

http://www.sochealth.co.uk/history/black.htm

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/downloads/theme_compendia/fosi2004/SocialInequalities_summary.pdf accessed 18/3/06

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/downloads/theme_compendia/fosi2004/Health.pdf ch. 6 p.4 accessed 18/3/06

http://eprints.libr.port.ac.uk/archive/00000016/01/jechdiv3.pdf accessed 19/3/06

http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:STDauFm9KtQJ:image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Society/documents/2002/11/20/TacklingHealthInequalities.pdf+class+inequalities+in+morbidity&hl=en&gl=uk&ct=clnk&cd=30 accessed 19/3/06

http://www.archive.official-documents.co.uk/document/doh/ih/part1b.htm accessed 19/3/06

http://www.dh.gov.uk/assetRoot/04/11/76/98/04117698.pdf p.6 accessed 19/3/06 Tackling Health Inequalities 2005

http://www.archive.official-documents.co.uk/document/doh/ih/part2a.htm part 2 no page number given accessed 19/3/06

1

Much of the current research on underachieving boys in education is focused on suggesting solutions in terms of teaching methods. It is possible to criticise this approach as one can argue that in order to effectively formulate strategies aimed at helping boys who underachieve, you need to actually understand why they are underachieving. Some research suggests that the phenomenon of ‘new laddism’ is just the old fashioned problem of boys behaving badly (Chaudhary, 1998). The solutions therefore do not actually focus on the cause of bad behaviour – just focus on dealing with the behaviour itself.

Media representations of ‘underachieving boys’ are also problematic. They all too often ignore important questions and issues, such as which boys are ‘underachieving’? Delemont (1999) points out the problems with the crude portrayals that suggest boys underachievement and laddishness are synonymous; they are not. Not all ‘laddish’ boys are underachievers and not all underachievers are ‘laddish’.

Objective 3 of this research was addressed in detail in the previous section – the literature review. Objective 1 and 2 of this research will be implemented through the collection and analysis of empirical data. This study is interested in an in-depth analysis of the year 10 and 11 boys at the researcher’s school, and specifically the reasons why they adopt laddish attitudes. Objective 1 will be focused on through analysis of the school staff as well, in particular looking at the process that causes certain types of behaviour to be labelled as laddish.

Cohen and Manion’s (1996) description of a case study – the researcher observing the characteristics of an individual unit – sums up this piece of research neatly. Howard Becker (1970) describes one aim of case studies as the attempt ‘to arrive at a comprehensive understanding of the group under study’. This researcher be attempting to gain a comprehensive understanding of boys who underachieve at Tewkesbury School. Case studies can also be used to produce typologies, or a set of categories defining types of a social phenomenon. Douglas (1967) suggested that case studies could be used to discover the different types of suicide by uncovering the different social meanings of suicide. There is a possibility that this research can produce some typologies about the different types of behaviour that causes male underachievement.

The potential issue with this research strategy is that it is not possible to generalise on the basis of my findings. It is impossible to determine how far the findings of this research can be applied to underachieving boys in other schools. As Bryman (1988) suggests, one way around this would be to repeat the research in other schools looking at the same phenomenon. The issue though with attempting to repeat the research is that it is difficult to make direct comparisons of the results of studies carried out either by different people, or by the same people at different times.

Historical research as a strategy is not appropriate to this topic as it is generally associated with the study of non-contemporary phenomena – this research is clearly not interested in anything non-contemporary. Experimental research is also not appropriate to this topic as it’s very nature is at odds with what this research is attempting to do – experimental research will try to objective by taking phenomena out of it’s natural context, this research needs to understand what is happening in a school environment. Action research was considered due to the in-depth nature of the analysis it engages in – but this research is not focused on one specific problem that can be tackled this way, the researcher is interested in exploring a range of issues linked to laddish behaviour and underachievement.

This research will produce qualitative data in the main. Denzin and Lincoln (1994) describe qualitative research as studying things in their natural settings, and attempting to make sense of phenomena in terms of the meanings people give to them. Some quantitative data will also be produced as well, which Myers (1997) states is often produced through survey techniques within a social setting and as such works well when used alongside qualitative methods.

Orlikowski et al. (1991) say that there are three categories into which qualitative research strategies fall into, depending upon the researcher’s view of the world; critical, positivist and interpretivist. Whilst this researcher does believe that in terms of a critical perspective of the world, people are influenced by social and cultural circumstances, he does not believe that the main of his research should be to free people from the restraining forces that impact upon their lives. His role is simply to understand better the key aspects of laddish behaviour and underachievement. This research will also not be adopting a positivist methodology, as the researcher does not believe that human beings can be studied in the same way that the natural sciences use to study particles, gases and rocks. The French writer Auguste Compte was the first person to use the phrase ‘positivist philosophy’ (Compte, 1986). He believed that scientific knowledge about society could be accumulated and used to improve human existence so that society could be run rationally without religion or superstition getting in the way of progress. Compte believed that the scientific study of society should be confined to collecting information about phenomena that can be objectively observed and classified. He argued that researchers should not be concerned with the internal meanings, motives, feelings and emotions of individuals – these states only exist in the persons’ consciousness so cannot be observed, and cannot be measured in any objective way.

The fundamental part of positivism is its use of statistical data. Positivists believed that it was possible to classify the social world in an objective way. Using these classifications it was then possible to count sets of observable social facts and then produce statistics. You can then look for correlations between different social facts. If there is a correlation between two or more types of social phenomena, then a positivist might suspect that one of these phenomena is causing the other to take place. This can be criticised though, for example if you look working class boys underachieving in school, the correlation between those two factors is not necessarily causal. It may simply be an indirect correlation.

Positivism is based upon an understanding of science that sees science as using a mainly inductive methodology. This begins by collecting the data. The data is then analysed and out of this analysis theories are developed. Once the theory has been developed it can then be tested against other sets of data to see if it is confirmed or not. If it is repeatedly confirmed then positivists like Compte assume they have discovered a law of human behaviour.

Other researchers though have not accepted the inductive method. Indeed, many use an alternative, a deductive approach. This alternative methodology is supported by Karl Popper in his book The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1959). The deductive approach reverses the process of induction. It starts with a theory and tests it against the evidence, rather than developing a theory as a result of examining the data. Popper argues that scientists should start with a ‘hypothesis’; a statement that is to be tested. This statement should be very precise and should state exactly what will happen in particular circumstances. On the basis of this hypothesis it should be possible to deduce predictions about the future. Popper differs from positivists in that he denies it is ever possible to produce laws that will necessarily be found to be true for all time. He argues that however many times a theory is apparently proved correct, there is always the possibility that at some future date the theory will be proved wrong, or ‘falsified’. He suggests that scientists have a duty to be objective, and to test their theories as rigorously as possible. Therefore, once they have formulated hypotheses, and made predictions, it is necessary to try constantly to find evidence that disproves or falsifies their theories.

Some though argue that in practice scientists operate in very different ways from those advocated by Popper or positivists. Thomas Kuhn (1962) has developed an analysis of science which sees it as being far from the objective pursuit of knowledge. He argues that science is characterised by a commitment to a scientific paradigm. A paradigm consists of a set of beliefs shared by a group of scientists about what the natural world is composed of, what counts as true and valid knowledge, and what sort of questions should be asked and what sort of procedures should be followed to answer those questions. Kuhn does not believe that the same methods and procedures are found throughout scientific history; rather, they are specific to particular sciences at particular times. Scientists may ignore evidence that does not fit ‘their’ paradigm.

To Kuhn, a scientific subject is one in which there is an agreed paradigm. There is no guarantee that this accepted paradigm is correct: it may well be replaced by a new paradigm in the future. If Kuhn’s view of science is accepted, then it is doubtful social research can be considered as scientific. There is no one accepted paradigm in social research – the different perspectives all see the social world in different ways: they ask different questions and get different answers. Kuhn’s work has been criticised though as you can argue that it has little relevance to social science and based upon inadequate evidence. Anderson, Hughes and Sharrock (1986) believe that he has underestimated the degree to which there is conflict and disagreement in natural science. Most of the time alternative paradigms are debated. A careful examination of the history of science shows that ‘the periods of revolution grow in size while those of settled normality contract’.

The approach that this researcher will be adopting as identified by Orlikowski et al. (1991) is interpretivism. This most closely matches this researcher’s approach to research, and as a teacher of sociology it has been refined over the past ten years of either studying or teaching the subject. The interpretivist approach suggests that qualititative data collection techniques should be used. Social action can only be understood by interpreting the meanings and motives on which it is based. Many interpretivists argue that there is little chance of discovering these meanings and motives from quantitative data. Only from qualitative data – with its greater richness and depth – can the sociologist hope to interpret the meanings that lie behind social action.

Interpretivists reject the use of natural science methodology for the study of social action. The natural sciences deal with matter. Since matter has no consciousness, its behaviour can be explained simply as a reaction to external stimuli. People though, have consciousness – they see, interpret and experience the world around them in terms of meanings. Max Weber talks about how understanding the motives behind people’s behaviour could be achieved through verstehen – imagining yourself to be in the position of the person whose behaviour you were seeking to explain.

Phenomenology represents the most radical departure from positivism. Phenomenologists go even further than interpretivists in that they reject the possibility of producing causal explanations of human behaviour. They do not believe that it is possible objectively to measure and classify the world. To phenomenologists, human beings make sense of the world by imposing meanings and classifications upon it. These meanings and classifications make up social reality. They believe that researchers should limit themselves to understanding the meanings and classifications which people use to give order to and make sense of the world. Studies which utilise this method concentrate almost entirely on the subjective aspects of social life which are internal to the individual’s consciousness.

DATA COLLECTION

Convenience sampling was used to select the participants in the research project. It was convenient because the researcher works at the school involved in the study. There is nothing random about the students and staff who have been chosen and the researcher is making no claim of representativeness and generalisability to anywhere other than his school. That is not the focus of the research – instead it is focused on simply gaining an in-depth understanding of the key issues involved in laddish behaviour and underachievement. This method of sampling was also used due to the fact that it is by far the easiest way to access participants.

This research will use two main methods of collecting data: interviews and secondary data analysis. The main data collection technique will be semi-structured interviews. Interviews are as Yin (2003) states, able to provide insights into complex situations. And as Goldthorpe et.al (1968) found, interviewees could be prompted if they cannot decide how to answer a question. The interviews will be semi-structured because this will allow the students and staff to express their views, explain their individual circumstances and expand on any answers. The researcher though will be able to guide them towards the specific area of interest because there will always be some pre-planned questions. The key is, as Marshall and Rossman (1989) put it – the participant’s view on the phenomena of interest should unfold as they truly view it, not as the researcher views it.

The use of more than one method allows the researcher to engage in methodological pluralism. This is the idea that we should tolerate of a variety of methods in sociological research, because methods should be seen as part of the research process as a whole. (Bryman, 1998). The key advantage to the researcher is that it allows him to combine both positivist and interpretivist research methods, which allows him to benefit from triangulation, which is where the strengths of one method balance out against the weaknesses of another, and allow me to cross-examine the results. Methodological pluralism has become more and more popular in recent years amongst sociologists, although the idea itself has not escaped criticism: However, consensus over methodological pluralism is incomplete, and does not even mean that subscribing sociologists have actively sought to promote pluralism. As Bell, observed: aˆ¦ individual sociologists – no matter how tolerant, catholic and eclectic – are very unlikely actually to be methodological pluralists aˆ¦ . It is the structure of sociology that became pluralist not sociologists themselves. (Bell and Roberts, 1984). Indeed, Payne et al (2004) conducted research aimed itself at measuring the extent to which methodological pluralism is used in sociological research. They concluded: “Only about one in 20 of published papers in the mainstream journals uses quantitative analysis, ranging from simple cross-tabulations to multivariate techniques. This is not grounds for an argument that there should be less qualitative research, but rather that there should be more quantitative research.

The site for the research will be Tewkesbury School. The research project is not intended to be an exhaustive study of laddish behaviour and underachieving boys in the local area – it is specific to the researcher’s school and the needs and priorities of that school moving forward. The research will be focused on male students in year 10 and year 11. They have been selected for two main reasons – those are the two year groups for which we have the most accurate data on who is ‘underachieving’, and improving the performance of these boys is the main priority for the school moving forward. The data on underachievement is generated by subject teachers who are judging the progress of students against their FFT (D) (Fisher Family Trust) targets. These type D targets are based upon the progress made by schools in the top 25% percentile of value-added schools nationally. Also, as Epstein et al (1998) points out – it is at this age group that laddish behaviour begins to impact most heavily on educational performance. The staff that will be interviewed will be from a range of subject areas – including English, Maths and Science. The research will analyse the different levels of underachievement and seek to identify reasons why these boys may be underachieving more in certain subject areas.

Interviewing different staff allows for cross-comparison’s of responses – which will allow key themes to emerge. Indeed, as Holstein et al (1995) suggest, the interviewing process itself often creates new knowledge rather than just revealing data that was previously present in the interviewees’ heads. The following staff will be interviewed:

1 – Head of Maths Faculty.

2 – Head of Science Faculty.

3 – Head of English Faculty.

4 – Head of Humanities Faculty.

5 – Head of Arts Faculty.

6 – Head of Technology Faculty.

All these staff have an in-depth knowledge of performance in their faculties, and have specific experience of the underachievement by students. The interviews will be recorded, where possible, for two reasons – to ensure that the analysis of data is based upon an accurate record, and to allow the interviewer to concentrate on the actual interview. Secondary data in the form of school exam performance and monitoring reports will also be collected to form part of the analysis. This will allow the research to understand the scope of current performance levels.

To help focus the interviews in terms of reflecting the main objectives of this research they will be structured in according to key themes, for example patterns of behaviour that are labelled as laddish, understanding of current underperformance issues, awareness of the issues involved in boys choosing to behave in a laddish manner. In terms of analysing the interviews, as Bogdan and Biklen (1982) put it; the researcher should aim to work with the data, analyse and break it down into manageable units, search for patterns and decide what is important. This summarises neatly the modern interpretive approach to qualitative data analysis and the approach that this researcher will use.

LIMITATIONS AND POTENTIAL PROBLEMS

There are many potential problems in any research problem, and especially when researching a topic like this project is aiming to. The key one is generalisability – this research cannot be generalised to any other educational setting, as it is purely relevant to the setting that the researcher is currently employed in. This does raise a question mark over the validity of the findings, but as most interpretivists argue, including Ackroyd and Hughes (1981), the researcher is not limited to what he or she can immediately perceive or experience, but is able to cover as many dimensions and as many people as resources permit. The depth of data gathered by this research should enable the researcher to find the truth, or at least the best representation of it available, hence ensuring a good degree of validity.

The reliability of unstructured interviews can also be questioned as they are artificial situations, as Bryman (1988) notes, do they really capture the daily life, conditions, opinions, values, attitudes, and knowledge base of those we study as expressed in their natural habitat? Perhaps even more problematic is the issue of the researcher maintaining objectivity when interviewing colleagues in an environment in which he works. Labov’s (1973) work also points out the way that school children can respond differently when interviewed in different contexts. They often respond in a certain way when interviewed in a formal setting that is very different from how they respond in an informal setting.

Any research project which has interviews as the main source of data is hampered by interviewees who exhibit bias or poor memory recall, (Winlow 2001). This researcher has attempted to deal with this by gathering data from a range of sources, i.e. the various heads of faculty, and a range of students. This allows the researcher not to be dependent on one or two respondents for key data. But one must approach this research with the knowledge that people are not robots, especially school students, and that errors are bound to creep in, in terms of bias and honest mistakes of recollection. The issue of ecological validity pointed out by Hammersley and Gomm (2004) which is that interviews are unnatural social situations and the context affects the behaviour of interviewees so much that the resulting data cannot be seen as valid, does need to be allowed for, but overall it is expected that any bias or misinformation will be minimised.

The researcher himself needs to alter his mindset slightly when conducting the interviews – he has to view them not as colleagues but as research subjects, and this role change needs to be communicated to staff. Linked with this role change is the need for the researcher to gain the trust of his colleagues, as they may well be nervous about expressing their views openly, and so to encourage open and honest discussion, anonymity for academic staff will be guaranteed where required. (Biggam 2008).

The use of quantitative statistics to measure and understand the extent of underachievement also has it’s issues. Atkinson (1978) believes that they are simply the product of the meanings and taken-for-granted assumptions of those who construct them. This is particularly the case when analysing teacher’s perceptions of who is underachieving, so the researcher must be wary of this. As Byrne (2006) states, they are useful to most social scientists – they are made out of something, not nothing, and that provided we pay careful attention to the ways in which they are made, and in particular the processes of operationalisation they can be of very considerable value to us.

Finally, in terms of ethics there are a range of potential issues to take into account. The researcher will be abiding by the code of ethics as set out by the British Sociological Association and the BERA. Participants will all give voluntary informed consent, which involves the need for them to substantially understand what the research involves. This ensures that no deception of any participants is involved. This does of raise the methodological issue of ecological validity, but it is not possible for the research to remove this issue. All participants have the right of withdrawal at any point, and this right is explained to each participant at the outset of any research. This research does involved the participation of children, so appropriate consent has been gained first from the school headteacher, as gatekeeper, from the parents/guardians of any children involved, and of course from the children themselves. Brookman (1999) talks about the issue of confidentiality and it’s impact upon the research, but as discussed earlier, all participants were offered full anonymity as a condition of their participation.

Essentially, as Israel and Hay (2006) point out, the ultimate purpose of having research ethics is to avoid harm and do good. They comment that contemporary researchers are normally expected to minimise risks of harm or discomfort to participants. This research will strive to ensure that this is the case.

As a member of a minority group this subject is something of interest and has personal relevance to my experiences living in a pre-dominantly white society. The absence of appropriate Asian role models in the media such as television, films, history, newspapers and in positions of credible political and economic influence, stimulated a natural process of personal questioning of identify. The social labels which surround us either positive or negative shape our perceptions of self and influence the kind of decisions we make. If we don’t understand the social fabrics of society in which self is developed and do not nurture a genuine inquiry into how oppression functions, we end up living those social labels. Some of these can be harmful and cause us to become disadvantaged even to the point of oppression of ourselves. It could be argued that this is an unlikely phenomena but psychological oppression is a well-researched and uncontested concept amongst academics. I am simply referring to and naming what it really is, “internalised self-oppression”.

This paper will attempt to examine the discourses and ideas which shape and influence our understanding of oppression as well as establishing a link between this and social labelling. Oppression as a concept has a very broad meaning and relates to different forms of minority groups in different ways. In this paper I will explore the relationship of oppression drawing on various forms of resources and information to support a particular perceptive. It should be recognised that oppression is not exclusive to race but impacts on other groups such as women, disability, age, sexual orientation and class with varying degrees of intensity and differences. However, for the purposes of this assignment I will specifically focus on the concept of race. I will present the four key criteria’s of oppression presented by Ann Cudd in her book Analysing Oppression (Cudd, 2006) and then focus on the effects of social labelling as phenomena. I will present a view that in order to understand oppression we must also understand the social systems, structures and influences that facilitates internalised oppression. My conclusion will aim to provide some suggestions towards highlighting how to end oppression and limit or reduce its effect on individuals who are exposed to the dynamics of oppression.

Defining layers of oppression

History literature books document oppression in different ways from religious repression, class differences, poverty and wealth, language and knowledge just to name a few (Kernohan 1998). Oppression is traditionally understood to relate to the loss of freedom, free choice, independence and capabilities due to actions of those in positions of power (Wartenberg 1992). Half a century ago, if asked the question what is oppression, many would refer to slavery or colonialism. In this day and age there is a greater understanding and awareness of oppression. Iris Young a respected author on the subject of power and oppression highlights how oppression has a much broader understanding making reference to “systematic and structural phenomena that are not necessary the result of the intentions of a tyrant. Oppression in the structural sense is part of the basic fabric of a society, not a function of a few people’s choice or policies”(Young, 1992, p. 176). In this respect oppression can be considered to be in the psychological and behavioural patterns of every member of society including those who are well meaning individuals whether they are aware of it or not.

Oppression as we once thought of is far more subtle, as Jean Harvey explains civilised oppression “involves neither physical violence nor the use of law. Yet these subtle forms are by far the most prevalent in Western industrialised societies” (Harvey, 1999, P. 1). Recognising different forms of oppression means decoding cultural and societal norms which do not clearly categorise or has a clear distinct oppressor. We all contribute to oppression in different ways and perpetuate forms of harm consciously or unconsciously, either to ourselves or to others (Harvey, 1999).

Ann Cudd helps us to explain this further by outlining four key criteria’s which are necessary and appropriate in increasing our understanding of oppression:

“Oppression must involve some sort of physical or psychological harm, though it may not be recognised as harm by the ones who are oppressed” (Cudd, 1994, p.25). So harm can be imposed without being self-conscious limiting one’s “freedom of choice relative to other in one’s society” (Cudd, 1994, p.25).

“Oppression is a kind of harm that individual members of group suffer by virtue of their membership in that group. aˆ¦harm that comes to persons because they belong to a group that they closely identify with, so that the harm attaches to their very self-image” (ibid). Individuals are not oppressed as individuals but due to their membership to a specific group, such as race, gender, disability or sexual orientation. Keith Vaz MP might not be considered as being oppressed although black men in society are. He has the same limitations as other black men who have less power in society and will have obstacles to cross that other white men take for privilege.

The third criteria, is what Cudd refers to as the ‘privilege group’ (Cudd, 1998). She makes the point that an individual who has membership to a group which benefits from the oppression is advantaged by their association and status. However, not every individual member of the group will be intentionally or knowingly benefiting but they gain from the membership to that group.

Oppression must involve some kind of coercion or force ((Cudd, 1994). Coercion is the lack of ability to make free choice. Cudd goes on to explain that “coercion is not the absence of all choice, but a lack of the right kind of choices, namely, voluntary choices” (Cudd, 1994, p. 27). Cudd suggests that this is what explains injustices of oppression.

A further dimension

My concept of oppression will focus on Ann Cudd’s coercion criteria with some variation. Not all coercion might be considered immoral as an explanation towards injustices of oppression. There are other forms of oppression, more subtle kinds which equally are not coercive such as psychological oppression. Prilleltensky and Nelson make reference to Sandra Bartky who states “To be psychologically oppressed is to be weighed down in your mind; it is to have a harsh dominion exercised over your self-esteem. The psychologically oppressed become their own oppressors; they come to exercise harsh dominion over their own self-esteem. Differently put, psychological oppression can be regarded as the ‘internalisation of intimations of inferiority” ((Isaac & Prilleltensky, 2002, p. 13).

In this respect there is no force or coercion; individuals will have the ability to make free choice in making decisions, so the lack of voluntary choice is not affected. Individuals who are psychologically oppressed become their own persecutors. The options are available to them but they are only likely to make decisions and choices which their culture or community demands of them. There are other forms of elements of oppression at work which are dynamic, fluent and interact, as oppression doesn’t occur in isolation but many forces come together in order to hold people in a state of oppression (Frye 2005).

Oppression is well documented throughout history and in literature. Particular references are made to slavery of the treatment of African slaves, the holocaust and the suffering and torture of European Jews. The systematic discrimination against sexual minorities including gay and lesbians ((Cudd, 2006). The disproportionate use of ‘stop and search’ against black minorities being seven times more likely to be stopped by the police compared whites ((Muffler, 2006).

The above examples make reference to the way in which physical ill-treatment is used to subjugate particular groups of people. However, the most efficient and effective way a society can propagate oppression is by a system of non-physical means transforming into a process of what we call negative labelling or commonly referred to as stereotyping.

There are many studies undertaken which highlight the effects of stereotyping on particular groups. This includes how these groups of individuals self-categorise themselves into positive or negative stereotyping which either way leads to negative and damaging effects. Michael Hogg refers to a study undertaken by Jost and Elsbach suggesting the link between stereotyping and power differentials as a negative force within social relations which results in distortion, control and false awareness of the oppressed groups reality ((Hogg, 2002). The element of control is imbedded into the consciousness of the individuals being stereotyped. Altshuller refers to the following quote by Jost and Banaji “those with power can control ideas, beliefs, and stereotypes in the same way they control other social and material resources and can thereby instil a ‘false consciousness’ in the powerless such that the powerless become complicit in their own disadvantage” ((Altshuller, 1999, p. 325). The weak become accepting of their position of being oppressed and psychologically become their own oppressors by self-limiting their opportunities and life chances. Cudd makes the following point, “it is not that they (the psychologically oppressed) will prefer oppression to justice, or subordination to equality, rather they will prefer the kinds of social roles that tend to subordinate them, make them less able to choose, or give them fewer choices to make” (Cudd, 2008, p. 114).

There has been varying degrees of research analysing the relationship between oppression and stereotyping which support findings that individuals who are negatively stereotyped adopt the stereotyping. This in turn sets into motion self-defeating beliefs which develops into limiting factors in accessing life opportunities. In a study conducted by Devos and Banaji they refer to how stereotyping leads to a type of phenomenon that results in self-stereotyping ((Banaji, et el, 2005).

However, stereotyping distorts the reality of the lived experiences of individuals who are being stereotyped. Sayers suggests that “the media influences our perceptions and that these perceptions then influence our behaviour towards stereotyped groups (Sayre, 2009, p. 318). So for example if we see a rebellious young teenage black adolescent, we may perceive him/her as having a violent culture in comparison to a white civilised European culture. Instead of challenging institutional oppression we use blame to shift the focus of responsibility (Cudd, 2006).

Stereotyping can be damaging in other ways. According to the theory of stereotype threat ((Laurie A. Rudman, 2008) “the existence of such stereotypes means that anything one does or any of the one’s features that conform to it make the stereotype more plausible as a self-characterisation in the eyes of others, and perhaps even in one’s own eyes” (Steele and Aronson, 1995, p. 797).

A further dimension to stereotyping is direct situational threat that arises through negative stereotyping. This relates to the risk of being treated or judged in a stereotypical way or even perhaps self-fulfilling the stereotype.

Immediate situational threat is another result of the negative stereotypes against a group. That is the threat of the possibility of being judged or treated stereotypically, or even self-fulfilling the stereotype. This stereotype threat, according to Stangor, “Can befall anyone with a group identity about which some negative stereotype exists, and for the person to be threatened in this way he need not even believe the stereotype. He need only know that it stands as a hypothesis about him in situations where the stereotype is relevant”(Stangor, 2000, p. 370).

There are many studies carried out exploring the relationship between stereotype threat and poor intellectual tests (Weiten, 2012). Different people will react differently to situational threat. Individuals will either blame themselves for their lack of achievements or internalise inferiority, both of which leads to lowering their rank and status in society (Aronson, 1995). Internalising the blame leads to individuals not feeling they have the ability or confidence to succeed, therefore they are likely not even to make any attempt. So for example, I have always wanted to paraglide. It might not be in my capabilities, so have never tried and never will. However, it will not affect my life opportunities, impact on my quality of life or leave me in an oppressed social status. Nevertheless, self-blame could cause to decrease and lower quality of life. If self-blame is used for our lack of success on our incapacities, it would make it problematic to identify and challenge institutional oppression. Self-blame is the final ingredient in maintaining oppression.

Realigning the balance

In order to redress the balance, there are different ways to overcome oppression in culture and attain a more egalitarian society. This requires personal commitment in challenging oppressive structure. It requires re-structuring of established institutions and the thought processes that influences them. It is helpful to remember that simply making policies to encourage change does not help, although policies give some direction reflecting where society is going, it does not simply “promote social justice and reduce oppression” (O’Connor, 2003, p. 20).

It is not a far-fetched view, that stereotyping is used to justify all kinds of harms on groups of individuals. Harm causes damage to one’s ability. Therefore any harm that violates one’s self and their development of human ability is a violation of universal and human rights (Nussbaum, 2001). The impact and effect of negative labelling attacks and destroys his/her sense of self image by violating their experiences. This violation occurs not only physically but through years of ‘training’ and being subject to negative messages, instilling a false consciousness and it is this which results in oppression.

All human beings have a right to live free of physical and emotional violations which results in any form of harm. Each individual has the right to dignity, self-worth, and to maximise their internal potential without the fear of abuse. Through self-stereotyping, if we lack the confidence that we do not have abilities then we are less likely to pursue and develop our capabilities.

However, simply having basic human rights is not sufficient to bypass the harm which oppression causes. Challenging cultural dynamics, religious practices and social norms which create the kinds of conditions for oppression to flourish should be confronted through education and providing information enabling individuals to make decisions and choices that do not violate their sense of self.

Developing influential role models that advocate and develop a collective identify regardless of their individuality can assist in developing images of credible and honourable representatives. Such individuals would help to counter the negative portrayal of groups which are likely to be exposed to some form of negative labelling.

Conclusion

The path to ending all forms of oppression is by far not an easy journey. More often than not minority leaders rarely challenge the structures or the system but instead they adapt to increase their own access to power. It is not uncommon that many minority leaders holding positions of influence create an impression of equality of opportunity which is reassuring to the privilege groups. However, this kind of representation could be damaging to the oppressed groups, as it distorts the reality of the oppressed, ignoring the very real problem with cultural oppression. This has the risk of overlooking the conditions and social problems which keeps people in their underprivileged positions. Rather than focusing on readdressing the system, oppressed groups are ridiculed, blamed and stereotyped for their circumstances (Segal, 2009).

To overcome the impact of self-stereotyping, simply ending social stereotype is not enough. More needs to be done to increase individuals’ ability and self-worth, so that every member of society can enjoy their true human rights. Social conditioning starts at a very early age, which defines our identity and the realisation of our ability or the lack of it. If we focus on countering the destructive stereotypes in our communities, then drawing our attention at children when they are young might be a start. This would include improving the quality of education and funding for the schools, but also ensure that funding is distributed equally to avoid creating a culture of differential treatment.

Education of adults is another element which would assist in reducing oppression. What is needed here is effective training that not only focuses on the future members of society but also on those individuals who are affected by oppression and stereotype threat currently. In this exists the challenge and the goal at reversing the stereotypes and reconstructing individual capabilities. Re-establishing and re-developing the undermined capabilities is our primary task here. Education which raises the awareness and empower oppressed groups should benefit from public support. There is no doubt that education itself is not just simply a cure to a complex range of dynamics such as oppression but it remains the most firmly established institution towards seeking restoration. An educational method originating and centred from the experiences of the oppressed is what is needed. In his book, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Paulo Freire gives the following quote: “Just as the oppressor, in order to oppress, needs a theory of oppressive action, so the oppressed, in order to become free, also need a theory of action. The oppressor elaborates his theory of action without the people, for he stands against them. Nor can the people-as long as they are crushed and oppressed, internalizing the image of the oppressor-construct by themselves the theory of their liberating action. Only in the encounter of the people with the revolutionary leader-in their communion, in their praxis-can this theory be built (Freire, 2007, p. 183). Having leaders with integrity and institutional support are the necessary elements in the ending of oppression.

Greater understanding and awareness should be developed into making individuals motivation independent from the negative identities, so that we have a society that is built on strong ambitious people. As part of a broader community, restructuring the capabilities which have been damaged and developing people to an equal threshold of using their potential and capabilities. Encouraging positive perceptions of identity would result in opening up many different possibilities and experiences which is critical in undermining the negative patterns of thoughts and feelings which result in internalising the oppression. Reducing the patterns of oppressive thoughts would be one of the first challenges towards making progress in ending all forms of internal and external oppression.

Culture, Gender, and Religion at the Limit of Human Rights in Africa.

The essay will focus on how culture, gender and religion limits human rights in Africa and how the three come into conflict which leads to discursively construct each other via cultural. It will also cover the potential and limitations of the women’s rights as human rights in which, attension will be paid to Islamic law-sharia and some of it cases in Nigeria. The essay will also relate international human rights documents like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, African Charter on human and people’s rights, protocol to the African Charter on Human and people’s Rights of women in Africa, and Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam(sharia law) and conclusion.

Legal Pluralism in Human Rights Law:

The plurality of norms and values that exist in different African cultues and societies is also reflected within the human rights system itself. The human rights system embodies both individual and communal rights. The tension relationship between the principle of a group’s right to self determination and cultural identity, asembodied in the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights and Article 16.1 of the Women’s convention, which puts an obligation on the states parties to eliminate discrimination against women in all matters relationg to marriage and family relation. In the African context is whether the protection of group rights such as culture and religious identity of ethnic group, constitutes a justifiable reason for differential treatment of women and men in African. There has always been great arguement when interpreting the convention in relationa to African States parties, it should be born in mind that African and Western cultures apply different values and norm(Grannes 1994:28) This is because the implementation of Women’s convention has proved to be particularly problematic in the area of personal and family law, where it comes into conflict with religious and customary laws and practices.

Human Rights in African

Over decades now, Africa have been ranked by international Human Rights organizationas like Human Right Watch, Ammesty International and International Crimenial Court as a continent where human rights violations are at it apex especially islamic countries, the violation of women’s basic human rights are mostly done in the name of culture and religion. [1] After the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948 in which pursuit of equal rights for women through international law has been fair from reach. The principle says that everyone is free and equal in diginity and eveveryone is entitled to rights “without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex…” was started in Articles 1 and 2 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights [2] , African Charter by the Organization of African Unity (now African Unity) in 1986, Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam by the Organization of the Islamic Conference in 1993. Anthropology as an academic discipline has embraced a predominantly ethical relativist stance toward the idea of human rights as a legitimate universal concern for all cultures. In the past years the rising prominence of women’s rights as human rights has challenged this point of view. Within the context of the global women’s human rights movement, feminist anthropologists are in the forefront of this challenge, striving to uphold anthropology’s important focus on cultural context, while at the same time paying deep concern for harmful pracetics against women, with female genital mutilation in African no exception, which may be argued to be morally objectionable outside of any given culture. “Human Rights” is a very difficult phrase to define. One’s idea of humanity varies in every culture especially in African societies; discrepancies are often found even within a singular culture.

Gender,Culture, Religion and social Causes a Barrie to Human Rights in Africa:

Violence continues to affect lives of millions of women in African in all socio- legal, economic and educational classes. This is cuting across cultural and religious barriers, which impeding women from taking full participation in societies. One of the greatest barriers to women’s economic advancement is violence they face on daily routine. Not only does such violence impede women’s ability to live full and productive lives, it also hampers their contributions to family, society and economic development. Violance aganist women is one of the most visible consequences of economic, social, political, legal and cultural inequalities that exist between men and women in Africa, as a result the continent is laging behind the rest of the world [3] . Given the subordinate status of women in Africa, women are most exposed to ill treatments, physiological abuse, and physical violence, such gender violence is considered normal and enjoys social sanction.

African continent is rich in cultural relativity(culture of discrimination) and norms, as a result it has showed a vital barrier to the implementation of the universal human rights act.

A universal agreement among certain human rights provisions is not likely to occur, specifically when dealing with islamic countries in African where transition to more equal rights is most problematic, where elements of Sharia law governing the behaviour of women remain active. In extreme examples in Northern Nigeria, these ancient laws still declaims that adultery is a crime when only carried out by women, and makes it impossible for a man to be convicted of rape. In certain circumstances, conforming to human rights would signify a fundamental change in societies that the elite is not willing to undertake, fearing a potential change in the balance of power while the cultural norms remains unchanged.

Violence against women in Africa comes in several forms discrimination, rape and Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), which the World Health Orgnazation (WHO) defines as ‘comprises all procedures that involve partial or total removal of the external female genitalia, or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons’.

The practice is mostly carried out by traditional circumcisers, who often play other central roles in communities, such as attending childbirths. Increasingly, however, FGM is being performed by health care providers and constitutes an extreme form of discrimination against women. It is nearly always carried out on minors and is a violation of the rights of children. The practice also violates a person’s rights to health, security and physical integrity, the right to be free from torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, and the right to life when the procedure results in death.

Despirte global efforts by World Health Organization (WHO), United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) to combat the wild spred of FGM, it still remains donominant in Africa as a cultureal partices, which lives about 92 million girls age 10 years and above are estimated to have undergone FGM and three million girls are at risk annually [4] .

The reasons behind female genital mutilation in Africa include a mix of cultural, religious and social factors within families and communities.In most African countries where FGM is a social convention, the social pressure to conform to what others do and have been doing is a strong motivation to perpetuate the practice. Traditions in African believes that FGM is often considered a necessary part of raising up process for girl(s), and a way to prepare them for adulthood and marriage life, it often motivated by beliefs about what is considered proper sexual behaviour, linking procedures to premarital virginity and marital fidelity and is also associated with cultural ideals of femininity and modesty, which include the notion that girls are clean and beautiful after removal of body parts that are considered male or unclean. The Africa Traditional Reglions (ATRs) is the only religion that fully support to the practice, practitioners often believe the practice has religious support, other religious leaders take active positions with regard to FGM: some still promote it, some consider it unimportant to religion, and others are still kicking against the idea.

Potential and Limitations of Women’s Rights as Human Rights

Social and economic indicators for African countries consistently show that women bear the greatest brunt of hardship because of disciminatory lwas against them, efforts to modernise this discriminatory laws have been frustrated by deep-rooted cultural barriers that runs in opposite direction with developments . Women in Africa contribute in numerous ways to the national development of every country. They are responsible for nearly all household duties , starting from food productions and processing exercises. Often, women tend to be viewed not as individuals, but as part of the male-headed household with some unique needs of their own related to their preceived roles, if given the rigts they can be at the front line of major global issues.

Women organizations in Africa and around world such as Formum for African Women Educationalist (FAWE) and the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) have been actively involve in using different approaches in seeing the the rights of women as stated in various international human rights docuents be met,their efforts are far from reach in Africa.

Sharai Law:

The word sharia means “the path to a watering hole”. It denotes an Islamic way of life that is more than a system of criminal justice. Sharia is a religious code for living, in the same way that the Bible offers a moral system for Christians. It is adopted by most Muslims to a greater or lesser degree as a matter of personal conscience, but it can also be formally instituted as law by certain states and enforced by the courts. Many Islamic countries have adopted elements of sharia law, governing areas such as inheritance, banking and contract law.

Sharai Law in Nigeria -Case One:

Safiya Hussaini, age 35, was sentenced to death by stoning in October 2002 for allegedly having a child with a married neighbour. She had the child after her divorce, but maintained the father was her former husband and that they were married when the child was conceived. The court convicted her, but Hussaini won an appeal, this time alleging that she had sex out of wedlock before sharia law took effect.

Sharai Law in Nigeria – Case Two:

In 2001, a teenage single mother was given 100 lashes for adultery, even though she argued she was raped by three men. The court said Bariya Ibrahim Magazu could not prove that the men forced her to have sex. Sexual discrimenation is transparent in this case, The Sharai law failed to bring the three men to book for raping, insisted all the blame was put on the woman alone.

Sharai Law in Nigeria -Case Three: In 2002, Adama Unusua, who was 19 and pregnant, was recently sentenced to 100 lashes in public for having sex with her fiance. [5]

International Human Rights Documents and Sharia Law in Africa:

The African continent ratified international and regional human rights protection instruments, human rights violations such as discrimination against women persists widely both in law and practice.The international commettee remains particularly concerned by the currently violations of human rights in Africa especially the ones currently going on in North Africa andWest Africa(Ivory Coast). The persistence of discriminatory laws; lack of perfect harmonisation between statutory and customary laws and the application of Sharia laws constantly increase violence against women, including widowhood rites; and obstacles to access top employment opportunities leades tonor right in decision-making that even affects them.The Shariagoes in oppsite direction with all international and regional human rights documents, expect in the Cariro Declaration on Human Rights in Islam by the Organization of the Islam Conferencce in may 1993, which made provision in Article 2 [6]

Conclusion:

Increase in the violation of huma rights in Africa is at it apex point, both the international and regional commeteer need to pay much attension to this issues, especially the violation of fundamental rights which are clearly speelts in all human rights documents with execption to Articule 2(c) p 4 of the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights.Women’s rights must be respected by eliminating all form of discrimination against them, so that they can see themselves as partners in development in African.

Immigration is a topic that not every individual would like to discuss, but its an issue that we hear and see every day. There is a high increase in immigrants entering the United Kingdom from European Union countries. Immigration is a subject that’s difficult to collect detailed data from as there is a lack of official statistics or evidence. As already mentioned, there are many immigrants from European countries but there are also immigrants entering London from many other countries (non-european). This depends on various reasons, as some may enter a specific country in order to escape from danger in their existing place or to claim asylum. So how do we know if immigration good or bad for the UK? I have conducted an ananymous interview and will use it to critically reflect on the journal article ‘Immigration and Social Cohesion in the UK’. The article mainly focuses on the negative aspects of migration in regards of population dimension. In this essay I will mention a few benefits that have been brought into London through immigration. I will make arguments in regards of economical and social benefits to the area. I’ll be arguing against the journal article and will announce positive aspects and my own view of migration. I will use the answers given by my interviewee and also use some external secondary data.

What is immigration? People who move from one nation to the other without being citizens to that specific national state are called immigrants. This is the movement of immigration (ImmigrationAssist, Undated). Immigration is an arguable topic in London as there are both, positive and negative aspects to it. I think that there are more positive aspects to immigration in London rather than negative aspects. London has become a popular place of immigration. People started migrating to London after the second world war (Migration Information, 2009). Immigrants are viewed as people who take over on jobs and houses and leave nothing for the existing citizens (Interview, Line). Criticisms of immigration to consider is that social solidarity gets weaker and secondly that immigrants do not adopt the culture and values shared in Britain, but rather express their own values within London. Immigration is viewed as a cultural eraser. Moreover the UK has a policy framework which prevents racial discrimination and therefore allows minorities to be visible within the country. Immigration levels have been constant from 1990 onwards (The Guardian, 2001). However, today London is receiving an unimaginable rate of immigrants.

Recently, there have been great arguments if there should be a limit introduced to immigration in London. Before attempting to give your own opinion it is important to consider both; negative and positive aspects of the topic. To announce it more accurately I think that it is difficult to maintain both sides at an equal level or to make a fixed statement for or against the matter. We, as the public have opinions about the limitation on immigration so do politicians. Let us consider some if these views. One of the main view is that the country is getting over populated. One of those over populated places in Britain is London. At present times there is a population number of 65 million people within London, however predicitions claim that within 70 years the population number will rise up to 108 million people (BBC, 2011). This means that immigrants will need houses to live in. The government is therefore building as many houses as possible. This means that the government is spending alot of money on resources. We’ll end up having less countrysides but a higher level of pollution as houses increase. If there was a limit set to immigration, the government wouldn’t need to spend money on building houses (Policy Network, 2013).

Not everyone has the same view about immigration, every individual has a different thought about it. Some of us certainly believe that it is better if we closed our borders in order to decrease the level of immigration (Gov.uk, 2013). But what do we gain from limiting the number of immigrants entering the country? The common perspective of immigration is that immigrants enter the country in order to obtain social benefits, which my interviewee also thought of (Interview, Line). However, immigrants do not possess the knowledge of the native language that is being used in the country, as they come from a different culture with different religions and different languages. These differences can lead to serious problems, such as violence. Dishonest immigrants enter the country in order to sell drugs or to carry out illegal activities. This is not a subject to be concerned about in London as much as it is in the United States.

On the other side, people view immigration as something positive, as I do. Immigration allows the society to be more diverse in terms of culture and religion. It is important to know the differences between various cultures, as it builds knowledge and may erase the issue of racism. Some believe that jobs are the country’s private property, whereas others claim that immigration is a key to spread a better economy to less developed countries. Immigration can therefore be announced as a tool that helps to overcome world property. Immigrants are known to be the most hard working and intelligent workers within the country. It’s an advantage to them as immigration allows to express talents and skills to another country (Independent, 2009).

Previous census results show that London has completely changed. The results clearly show that the number of immigrants entering Britain has gone up by 3 million. However, politicians claimed that this was not an issue to worry about. Moreover the 2011 census shows that London is now a place of multiculturalism; which means that the amount white population has decreased to a very low level (ons.gov.uk, interactive, 2011). This has also been mentioned in the dailymail, “It is believed to be the first time that British whites have become a minority in any region of the UK” (Dailymail, 2012). This certainly means that the country has a very low percentage of white population, however the population size seems to increase as the years go by. This is an outcome due to immigration. However, it is important to take into account that immigrantion is a not a bad thing itself. Immigration introduces many advantages to London, which can be gathered from the talents and ideas that have been brought into the country through immigration.

It was stated that English is a language that was made up of many foreign languages in Britain decades ago. Through immigration we see an increase in population and culture which has a positive impact on the society. Economically, the increase in population expresses the filled job positions within London, which allows an increase in tax input and therefore benefits institutions such as schools. However, a House of Lords report stated that immigration does not benefit London at all; “Minister Liam Byrne says migration has added A?6bn to the economy…” (BBC article, 2008). It does lead to a greater economy which is shared with a greater society which leaves us with nothing. My interviewee, stated that it is not fair on the existing population, as they work very hard to achieve. I certainly go against her saying as people don’t move out of one country to another just for the fun of it but for various reasons. The reasons could be the desire for a better living, such as good educational and job opportunities. It’s not easy to adopt a new athmosphere, and to seperate from family members and friends.

Just like any other place, London expresses that it contains racism to some extent. Even though we think that legal immigrants are treated fairly, there are still people who discriminate others as they possess different values and norms. The BBC news magazine announces, “for the most part legal immigrants are treated fairly but there are still racists out there, just cause someone is speaking a different language they start discriminating them…” (BBC ‘Does Britain’s sense of fair play attract immigrants?’, 2010). Illegal immigrants, however are treated not as fair as legal immigrants. Yet they are illegal residents, but they are here for certain reasons, such as the ideology of having a better life. This shows that “London is a place of opportunity and freedom” (BBC ‘Does Britain’s sense of fair play attract immigrants?’, 2010). The article also mentions that when people see someone from a different ethnic group, they tend to assume that they are illegal immigrants, when in reality they could be legal UK citizens.

The view is that London has economically benefited from immigration as the ‘new workers’ (immigrants) agree to take over on low paid jobs, which the existing population may not desire to opt for. Another reason is that the new workers allow the defeat in skill shortages within London. A recent home office research (Glover et al, 2001) states that there has been very little attention in force towards migration within the United Kingdom, “Immigration has been a market driven response to supply and demand, rather than policy-driven.”

There’s no solid solution for the increase of immigration in London, but there are some ways that could be used in order to reduce the amount of immigration. We already have security barriers at all British borders, although they are not strong enough. As I have already mentioned a method is to make those barriers stronger to prevent the high income of immigrants, this means that borders should be checked more frequently and strictly. There are actions taken at the border crossing, “The final set of recent immigration policy changes are designed to reinforce security at the border…” (Focus Migration, undated). The British police should be more aware of illegal entrance into the United Kingdom, and should therefore check immigrants if they have the correct documents to enter the country. The police should also be able to arrest those who enable immigrants to cross countries illegally. My interviewee stated that the government should take some action to decrease the amount of immigration, by providing a lower amount of benefits.

To conclude, it seems satisfactory to state that there are social and economic benefits and disadvantages to the UK through immigration, as migrant workers who recently entered London have brought such changes. The pressure on public services has been held responsible on immigration, moreover it is the government that was unable to set additional income into such services while obtaining the advantages of economic growth and greater tax profits. It is very difficult to follow an ‘open-door policy’ (the scheme of allowing equal business opportunities to all countries) without supplying any help to the community to deal with a greater population level. Immigration can be beneficial if the rate of immigration is maintained to a certain level and if the government fulfills the needs of the population. UK Borders should only be opened up to those who are hard working and who are in real danger. It is for certain that the immigrant population within London will change our lives by creating more diverse alterations to the country.

Word Count: 1,854

Interview transcription: Carried out on 12th April 2013

Q: Hi, how are you?

1. Alicia: Hiiii (big smile on face), not too bad actually, it’s just the weather that’s irritating.

Q: Let me just quickly explain what this is about, I will interview you and see what your opinion about immigration is. I’m doing this for an academic purpose and will use this interview for a critical reflection on an artical. I will not collect any personal details from you, as this interview remains anonymous. Is that okai with you?

2. Alicia: Yep, deffoo.

Q: Do you mind if I take a maximum of 15 minutes of your life?

3. Alicia: Haha, that’s not a problem. I don’t mind helping people you know.

Q: What’s your favourite town within London?

4. Alicia: Wembley.

Q: If you were to come from Wembley today, why would you get here, all the way from Wembley to Stratford?

5. Alicia: I like shopping, and Westfields is wow, it has a variety of shops. I don’t mind travelling, 6. it’s way better than sitting at home, hehe.

Q: How would you get here?

7. Alicia: I took the train. I drive but don’t own a car yet. I’m still looking for a part time job, coz I 8. don’t want my parents to get me a car. If it’s something for me then it should be from my 9. own money.

Q: Okai that’s a sweet idea. Would you be able to list any difference between Wembley and Stratford?

10. Alicia: Erm, no.

Q: Why not?

11. Alicia: Both places are pretty much multicultural. Erm, you can see people from everywhere, 12. erm you know like, ehhm, you see asians, whites and blacks, sorry I’m not trying to be racist 13. here, just answering the question.

Q: Interesting, do you prefer this country to remain multicultural?

14. Alicia: Yehh, curse I do. It’s cool how we connect with people from different backgrounds. 15. Not only Wembley and Stratford but all over London. I would say that London has people 16. from all over the world.

Q: What do you think, could be the reason for multiculturalism in London?

17. Alicia: I’m actually not sure you know. Erm (pause), I’m really not sure, maybe coz there are 18. better welfare services here..I think.

Q: Would you say that immigration has an impact on multiculturalism?

19. Alicia: Oh yh, actually that’s something to think about. Personally, I’m from Germany. I was 20. born there and spent 13years there. Originally I’m of a Pakistani background. I think there is 21. something about the government that makes immigration easier, coz in Germany you rarely 22. meet any people from different places. Immigration must be the reason, there must be 23. many people like me who migrated from other places to the UK.

Q: What do you think about immigration?

23. Alicia: Erm, it actually doesn’t matter of where you’re from, but it’s good to do it legally 24. rather than illegally…hehe (quiet laughter).

Q: Why do you say that?

25. Alicia: Well, illegal residents will of course call their children or relatives over and will opt for 26. benefits and free food and all that. It’s so not fair on us, coz we might end up being in a 27. position of hardship.(Quite tensed, forehead creased)

Q: What do you mean by hardship, do you mind expanding?

28. Alicia: It’s just you know, there is always a time where we might end up not getting 29. jobs…..erm, basically we’ll be jobless. We grow up in this country, and do everything legally, 30. and you know work hard to get into a decent job. That can’t be taken away from us by illegal 31. immigrants. It’s seriously not fair on the ones who work their bottoms off. (Smile faded, head still creased…pretty much into the questionnaire)

Q: But don’t you think that people may settle here due to their personal reasons?

32. Alicia: Well yeah, erm I know some people who came over coz they have some war or some 33. sort of problem going on in their place.

Q: Don’t you think that they work really hard too, to remain in a safe place?

34. Alicia: Hmm… (seems tensed)

Q: Do you think that immigration and population growth go together?

35. Alicia: I think so, the more migrates we have the higher the population will be.

Q: Is that something bad or good?

36. Alicia: I’d say bad, coz we’ll run out of houses to live in haha, I’m kidding, but as I said we’ll 37. experience hardship.

Q: So don’t you think that there are any good aspects to immigration?

38. Alicia: There are, as I said we connect to people who are of a different background. I would 39. say…(little pause), say that immigration makes us learn different cultures. Erm, it’s kinda like 40. getting to know different values and life styles, we’re basically learning…erm increasing our 41. knowledge. There could also be an opportunity to learn different languages.

Q: So you’re saying it allows cultural exchange?

42. Alicia: Er yeah, hehe.

Q: Is that the only positive aspect or do you have more to add?

43. Alicia: I would say that London is more welcoming than Germany. Erm immigration shows that the country is treating people fairly, whatever their background. (Big smile)

Q: That’s a really nice thought.